Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch refuses to back down from Merab Dvalishvili and Aljamain Sterling.
On Sept. 14, O’Malley defends his bantamweight title against Dvalishvili in the main event of UFC 306. The fight is a continuation of O’Malley’s rivalry with the Serra-Longo fight camp, as “Suga” won the belt by stopping Sterling, Dvalishvili’s friend and teammate. And given their history, things have gotten tumultuous between the two camps, starting with a series of messages back in May, and most recently resulting in a heated exchange of words at a media event this past week where Dvalishvili threatened to fight Welch in the street.
Speaking with Submission Radio recently, Welch weighed in on the situation.
“Initially, I thought it was because I said we’re going to target his nose in an interview, which isn’t a lie,” Welch said. “I mean, it’s not a lie. I’ve never really said fighting words to those guys. But then Merab tweeted out and said, ‘Next time I see you, I’m going to take care of it,’ or something. And it’s like, come on, brother. I haven’t trained martial arts my whole life for a little 5-foot-4 guy to try to punk me out. I’ve trained my whole life and I’m only 34 years old. I’m six foot, 195 pounds. It’s like, alright, alright, well, we’ll see what happens.
“But that’s that’s besides the point. This is a huge fight. We got the No. 1 contender versus the champion of the world. That fight is going to happen 100 percent. ‘Sugar Show’ versus Merab, and we’re preparing and we’re more dialed in than we’ve ever been because Merab does pose a serious, serious threat.”
Dvalishvili is not the only one to take umbrage with Welch’s words. In a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Sterling gave his thoughts on the situation, saying Welch should not be talking trash to a fighter, and if he keeps doing so, suggesting that “there are consequences for things that are being said.”
For Welch, all of this comes down Sterling and his team still being upset that O’Malley beat them.
“I think they’re still bitter,” Welch said. “They let the little curly-haired, funny guy who makes all these videos, who has tattoos on his face — Sean flat-lined [Sterling]. Sean punched him and dropped bombs on him, forced him to turtle up. You’ve got this world championship on the line and you’re fighting the ‘Sugar Show,’ I’m glad you were thinking about fighting me and not the fight you are in.”
Ultimately for Welch, he wants to stay focused on the thing that matters — UFC 306 — and he suggests Dvalishvili does the same. But much like Sterling said, if the other team wants to make something of this as the fight draws near, Welch does not intend to back down.
“It’s probably not smart for Merab to do that [on] fight week. Maybe after the fight,” Welch said. “You got the biggest fight of your life and you’ve got the opportunity to get a world championship. So, fight week, stepping into my face is probably not smart. You’ve got a fight ahead of you that you’re going to get paid for, so taking on me is not very smart. But we’ll see what happens. If they think our team is going to cower down to their team like [Henry] Cejudo’s team did, then they’re going to be wrong. They’re wrong about that.”
UFC 306 takes place at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
