Fresh off of a big win at UFC Vegas 5, top middleweight contender Derek Brunson hopes to fight either Jack Hermansson or Darren Till in his next fight.
Brunson picked up one of the most impressive wins of his UFC career to date when he finished top prospect Edmen Shahbazyan with a third-round TKO. Brunson was a +300 betting underdog heading into the fight and few gave him a chance to win, but he was able to beat the odds by using his wrestling to tire his younger opponent out, before beating him with ground and pound until referee Herb Dean stopped the fight in the third round.
The win over Shahbazyan keeps Brunson intact in the middleweight top 10. He entered the bout ranked at No. 8 in the UFC middleweight division, and now he knows who he wants next. Taking to social media the day after the fight, Brunson called out two top-10 opponents in his quest to get closer to the title shot at 185lbs. Check out what Brunson wrote on his Twitter.
Hermanson or Til next sounds good to me. Both ranked ahead of me & no fight scheduled! @UFC @AliAbdelaziz00 @danawhite @Mickmaynard2
Hermansson is currently ranked No. 4 in the UFC middleweight division. He is coming off of a huge first-round submission win over Kelvin Gastelum on Fight Island and has won five of his last six fights overall. As for Till, he is coming off of a decision loss to Robert Whittaker on Fight Island but had defeated Gastelum before that. Till, though, injured his MCL in the fight against Whittaker and will likely be out a minimum of six weeks before he can train.
UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is set to defend his belt against top contender Paulo Costa at UFC 253 in September, and the No. 1 contender spot in the division will be on the line between Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker at UFC 254 in October. That means that fighters such as Brunson and Hermansson are probably going to have to take another fight or two before they get that title shot. A pairing between Brunson and Hermansson, therefore, makes a lot of sense based on the current middleweight rankings.
