Darren Till is by all accounts happy and hungrier than ever after moving up to the UFC’s middleweight division. But bowing out at 170 pounds the way he did against Jorge Masvidal on home soil at UFC London in March 2019 remains a regret for “The Gorilla”, who had been coming off a second-round submission loss by then-champion Tyron Woodley. “I think we’re going to stick to the game plan,” Till (18-2-1) told a virtual media day ahead of Sunday’s bout against former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker (21-5) at UFC Fight Island 3 in Abu Dhabi. “Maybe a little bit more added aggression inside the Octagon. But yeah, you know, always stick to the game plan. “If only I would have done it against Masvidal, I would probably be on the cover of EA Sports right now.” It was revealed last weekend at UFC 251, the first event on Fight Island, that “Gamebred” Masvidal (35-14) will adorn the cover of EA Sports’ upcoming UFC 4 video game alongside middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. Masvidal’s knockout of Till began his rise to MMA superstardom, accelerated by a five-second flying knee KO of Ben Askren, and then by beating fellow fan favourite Nate Diaz for the “BMF” belt at Madison Square Garden last November. The 35-year-old Masvidal may have lost a unanimous decision to welterweight champ Kamaru Usman in Abu Dhabi, but his popularity is not in doubt, with the event pulling in a gigantic 1.3 million pay-per-view buys. Albeit light heartedly, Till pondered how it all could have been so different. UFC: Till says Adesanya next ‘and that’s all there is to it’ “You cannot fight every fight to perfection and it’s not like that,” he said. “The fight game is certainly not like that, and especially in MMA. That’s why it does not matter who you’re fighting, they could have a big belly or anything, you can never underestimate or overlook any fighter. “And I sort of overlooked Masvidal a bit you know, because he was a bit tiny. I beat Stephen Thompson and Stephen Thompson beat him comfortably. “So maybe on my part I did. But you live and you learn. I’m only 27 and I’ll probably learn much more. I haven’t even hit anything yet. I haven’t even started to begin. This is all just fun right now.” Indeed, Till revealed he had just bought his first house, and he took a moment with coaches sitting on the Fight Island beach this week to contemplate how far they had come. “I was sad for a long time and I had to just sort of build myself back up over long period of time,” he said of the Masvidal defeat. “Just had to face some demons, it was quite tough but it was two fights ago. I don’t really think about it no more.”