Sean O’Malley’s head coach wasn’t surprised by what he saw from Marlon Vera at UFC 299.
“He’s just as slow as I remembered,” Tim Welch said Wednesday on The MMA Hour.
“I knew Chito was going to have to get lucky with something, but I know how fighting is and that kind of stuff happens. I know Sean could throw one wrong kick and break his foot, or punch [Vera’s] elbow and now he’s dealing with a broken hand. I know how fighting is, so I was never overconfident for this fight. I’ll never be overconfident again after that first Chito fight [in 2020], but it went exactly how I expected. I didn’t think Chito would be able to last five rounds, and he did though, so props to him.”
O’Malley recorded the first successful defense of his UFC bantamweight title with a one-sided rout of Vera at UFC 299, racking up the eighth-most significant strikes ever landed in a UFC bout (230) to secure a long-awaited revenge win over Vera via unanimous decision. Vera previously defeated O’Malley with a first-round knockout at UFC 252, a result which remains the only loss of O’Malley’s professional MMA career.
It was a clinical performance from the UFC bantamweight champ, whose significant strike differential of 141 (230-89) also amounted to the second-best bantamweight mark of all-time and fourth-largest striking differential in a UFC title fight. For a bout in which O’Malley dominated from pillar to post, Vera’s lone bright spot came in the form of a fifth-round body shot after O’Malley threw caution to the wind as the final seconds ticked away. That punch ultimately led Vera to state on The MMA Hour that if he and the champ had fought to the death with no time limits, “the O’Malley family would have a funeral right now.”
Welch finds that claim laughable.
“He was hitting [Vera] with clean shots over and over,” Welch said of the champ. “They say if that fight would’ve been no time limit, Chito would’ve won, but I’m like, dude, [if] that fight’s no time limit, both his eyes are going to be swollen shut and he’s going to be the one getting killed. So I don’t know what they’re talking about there.
“[O’Malley] was wanting a finish, so he’s the one who chose to sit in the pocket. He knew how much time there was left, so he sat in the pocket for a reason. If there was more time left or if that was earlier in the fight, that body shot would’ve never landed. But I wasn’t really concerned with it. I knew it was such short time that he could tough it out.”
Vera also accused O’Malley in that same interview of foul play, claiming that O’Malley’s braided hair was greased “to the bone.” Vera said grabbing the champ “was like grabbing a fish out of the water” and alluded to the role that greasiness played in his failed result. Vera’s accusations prompted an expletive-laden rebuke from O’Malley, and while Welch didn’t broach the topic with the same level of anger, he echoed O’Malley’s surprise.
“I don’t think [O’Malley is] truly upset,” Welch said. “I think that Sunday morning, he probably did a little too much snacking Saturday night and his blood sugar was low and he felt a little bit chippy. But I don’t think he has any truthfully ill will towards him. But he’s the same way as I am — after the fight, it’s like, let’s be respectful, let’s be nice. And those guys not wanting to and then bringing that up, it’s like, dude, how can you even say anything when you got outclassed that bad besides, ‘Good job, dude.’ Like, greasing? That was a little weird.
“Even the lady commented on one of the posts I saw, the lady who braided his hair. She said she used the normal amount of gel. ... She’s just like, ‘I just used a normal amount of gel. I don’t know you’re freaking out.’”
Welch also threw cold water over the idea that a trilogy fight with Vera is likely to happen somewhere down the line. While the two bantamweights may be tied at one win apiece, the thoroughness of O’Malley’s latest victory makes a potential third bout a tough sell.
“That’s just different levels of guys right now,” Welch said. “Sean is elite. He’s an elite athlete. Chito’s got an elite mind, but he’s just not that fast and he’s not that strong. He doesn’t have anything that’s going to threaten ‘Sugar.’
“Chito seems like a mentally strong person, but those kinds of performances like that, you’ve seen it in the past — it demoralizes people and it changes their career forever. So hopefully it doesn’t happen to him, we’ll see. But the top five, top 10 at bantamweight now is so stacked. It’s possible, but I don’t see him really working himself back up to a title shot.”
