Jason Silva-USA TODAY Sports
Will the real “Gorilla” please stand up?
I know this is going to sound silly, even for MMA, but top-ranked middleweight contenders, Jared Cannonier and Darren Till, are locked in a dispute over their respective nicknames. The former is the “Killa Gorilla” while the latter is simply “The Gorilla.”
Folks, if the rap industry can survive with two musicians calling themselves “Dr. Dre,” then surely UFC fans will be fine with more than one “Gorilla.” And even though Till believes they should fight to settle their dispute, Cannonier wants none of it.
“I think I was the ‘Killa Gorilla’ before he was ‘The Gorilla,’ so he can he can kiss my ass about changing names and stuff like that,” Cannonier told Submission Radio. “Like I said, if he needs that for motivation, he can have that, he can do that himself, play out the scenario however he needs to. But at the end of the day, a fight’s a fight, names are just words. So, what we’re fighting for is something bigger than the name, I feel. We’re trying to get that title, we’re trying to cement whatever name I chose for you to call me. Cement that in legacy or history.”
There was talk of matching them up for the UFC 248 pay-per-view (PPV) event earlier this month in Las Vegas, but those plans were scrapped when Cannonier was felled by injury. Not that Till was making it easy at the negotiating table.
“Darren likes to troll people,” Cannonier continued. “That’s what the kids are doing nowadays on social media, they’re trolling everybody, just doing something completely ignorant and stupid, saying whatever comes to mind, which is usually something stupid or ignorant to get a rise out of people, a reaction out of people. But I’m a grown-ass man, and I’m gonna sit here and laugh at the dumb shit and acknowledge the real shit. So, you won’t see me acknowledging any of that dumb shit.”
While Cannonier heals up from injury, Till will move on to fight former middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker, in the promotion’s upcoming “Fight Night” event, scheduled for Sat., Aug. 15, 2020 inside 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.