An upcoming UFC welterweight title shot has put a spring in the step of Darren Till. It’s also brought its share of backlash from how the opportunity came about, and Till is frustrated with critics.

“(UFC President) gave it to me,” Till told MMANytt.com about his fight with champ Tyron Woodley, which headlines UFC 228 on Sept. 8 in Dallas. “What do you want me to do? Just say no? Go, ‘Dana, it’s fine, I don’t want that title shot. Give it to someone else if they deserve it.’

“If Dana’s offering the title shot, I’m not going to say no, mate. This is what we do. MMA is good, and MMA fans are so amazing. But also, they can be toxic at the same time. Not just MMA fans – the fighters and people in general.”

Till (17-0-1 MMA, 5-0-1 UFC) points out that he said after his last fight, a headlining win over Stephen Thompson at UFC Fight Night 130 for which he missed weight, he declared that he wasn’t deserving of a title shot. But to turn it down now would be stupid.

“When the UFC comes to me and offers me a shot,” Till said, “what the (expletive) do you want me to do?”

Till said the opportunity was presented to him during a meeting with White on a recent trip to Las Vegas. At the time, the promotion was struggling to find a headliner for UFC 228, and UFC interim welterweight champion Colby Covington had turned down a title unifier with Woodley because of a minor injury.

Till sympathizes with Covington (14-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC), but he can also see why the UFC chose to move on to another contender.

“Colby talks so much (expletive), and then when he was called to fight, he said, ‘I’m going to wait,'” Till said. “I don’t think it works like that. You can’t have your cake and eat it.”

“He has won the title,” Till added later. “He does deserve that shot, but the UFC, they’re not going to let him call the shots. It’s not for me to say. I’m just going off what the UFC and Dana want me to do. If they want me to fight for the title, I’m not going to say no, I’m upset.”

Till can’t control the circumstances surrounding his opportunity, but he has a consolation in mind for Covington and top contender Kamaru Usman.

“I know a lot of people are going to say, (expletive) Colby, because of who he is and what he does,” Till said. “But at the end of the day, he earned his right. So as soon as I strip Tyron of his title, Colby and Usman, they’re the two first people who are getting a shot at it.

“I’ll fight straight after the fight. We’ll set a date. They’re the two guys before I move up who are getting a shot. I’m assuming it will be Colby, but Usman’s got to get his shot at me. That’s a guy I can’t let go.”

Along with the chance to win one of the sport’s most coveted titles, Till sees his fight with Woodley (18-3-1 MMA, 8-2-1 UFC) as a chance to silence concerns over his weight, which of course were brought back to the fore when the title shot came his way.

“Everyone keeps going on with the weight, the weight, the weight,” Till said. “I’ve never seen someone get so much (expletive) for not making weight one time. It’s like I’ve never made weight. I can’t wait to come back and make the weight to be the new UFC welterweight world champion.”

Till plans to return to the U.S. to utilize the UFC Performance Institute, which has educated dozens of fighters on how to properly shed pounds prior to a contest. More important than the facility, though, is the team that accompanies him to prepare for the fight.

This time around, Till plans to start cutting weight early and leave nothing to chance when it comes to the scale. A video of his previous weight cut sparked an uproar and prompted one prominent regulator to call for Till’s corner to be suspended.

“Usually I always leave it until I have a big cut, because I know I can do the big cut,” Till said. “But maybe because I’m growing and getting bigger and older, maybe it’s time to get the weight down early. I want to get the weight down early, so there’s no problems, and make weight healthy.”

The fight itself is not something that worries Till. Although Woodley is perhaps the best wrestler he’s faced in his MMA career, Till views the matchup as a formality before the belt is around his waist.

“He’s been a champion,” Till said of Woodley. “He’s moving onto other things. It’s the passing of the torch, and he knows that.”

For more on UFC 228, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.