Merab Dvalishvili put on a clinic at UFC 306 as he dethroned Sean O’Malley to become the new bantamweight champion, but the fight started with an unusual moment that forced referee Herb Dean to get involved.
Just seconds into the opening round, Dvalishvili motioned towards his opponent’s corner and got the referee’s attention as he started exchanging words with O’Malley’s head coach Tim Welch. In the weeks leading up to UFC 306, Dvalishvili got rather heated when addressing some comments he took as insults from Welch, not to mention the coach apparently shouting instructions to Aljamain Sterling during his own fight against O’Malley back in August 2023.
It turns out the same thing was happening this past Saturday night with Dvalishvili revealing his side of the story after Dean was forced to admonish O’Malley’s coaches for shouting at him in the opening moments of the fight.
“Everyone is asking what happened at start of fight — I was trying to stay professional and focus on the fight only, not wanting to change the energy of the fight,” Dvalishvili explained on Twitter. “I made no eye contact with O’Malley’s team. But when the fight started I hear his team calling out to me ‘Merab!’ Trying to coach, provoke and distract me. I yelled back at them cut it out and coach your own guy.
“I remembered they pulled the same crap with Aljo. Not professional. This is the way they want their fighter to win. It’s a shame how disrespectful they are and that they have zero sportsmanship!”
Everyone is asking what happened at start of fight - I was trying to stay professional and focus on the fight only, not wanting to change the energy of the fight. I made no eye contact with O'Malleys team. BUT when the fight started I hear his team calling out to me - Merab..…
— Merab “The Machine” Dvalishvili (@MerabDvalishvil) September 16, 2024
The incident ultimately didn’t affect Dvalishvili’s performance, but his own head coach admittedly got fired up in the corner after the exchange.
“That’s not our job,” Syndicate MMA head coach John Wood told MMA Fighting following UFC 306. “I’m not trashing Tim for anything he does. I respect Tim, but it is a bullshit move. I was yelling at Tim across the cage several times when Sean would mess up ,and I was making sure Sean heard me calling out everything that he wanted to throw.
“When he would do something stupid, I caught myself a couple of times in the fight going ‘Tim, did you teach him that? That was terrible!’ [shouting] across the cage.”
Wood says he really didn’t want to get involved at all, but it was tough not to respond after hearing Welch talk trash to Dvalishvili in past podcasts, interviews, and social media posts leading up to UFC 306.
It sounds like the same thing started happening at the beginning of the fight but Dvalishvili got the last laugh after he largely shut down O’Malley’s striking and dominated the majority of the fight to win a unanimous decision.
“Fighters are there to trash talk, to build the fight, do their thing, whether they like each other, don’t like each other, I don’t think it’s a place for coaches to get in,” Wood said. “Tim was doing some stuff beforehand like at the weigh-ins, he was talking shit to Merab on camera, saying things and that’s fine. If you really feel like you need that mental edge and especially you could see how fragile Sean was and how quick he broke, maybe they do.
“But like I said, I have nothing against Tim. The tactics, I wouldn’t do it, I don’t need the shine. I don’t need to be the guy in front of my fighter looking to get attention. I’m not saying that’s what Tim does but yeah I think it’s pretty ridiculous. I had to reel Merab back into it and say ‘listen, it doesn’t matter what he says. Obviously he’s not coaching his fighter very well anyway, you don’t want to listen to what he has to say.’ It’s one of those things where I try to stay out of it. I don’t want to be involved in it.”
While Wood had every confidence that Dvalishvili would go out and vanquish O’Malley in the fight, he knows all too well that MMA is an unpredictable sport where anything can happen.
It’s one of the reasons why he prefers to just put full focus on his fighter rather than spending much time trying to tear down an opponent because he knows that can come back to bite you hard — a lesson Welch may be learning right now.
“Tim had posted a couple of things or what not — this is why I don’t talk shit before fights,” Wood explained. “Because you don’t know what’s going to happen and then you look kind of like a jackass after you’ve said all these things, you’ve talked shit to a fighter and your fighters talked all this crap and then all of a sudden, you get your ass beat and then it’s kind of like how does it feel now and it doesn’t feel all that good.
“I’ve learned over the years make sure I keep my mouth closed and let the fighters do what they want to do.”
As far as Welch actually trying to shout instructions at an opposing fighter, Wood definitely doesn’t abide by that strategy even if it didn’t work.
In that same situation this past year, Sterling claimed he didn’t even hear Welch yelling at him during the fight so whatever tactics were being employed didn’t work. Still, Wood just doesn’t see the need for the coaches to get involved at that level, especially when it could come at the detriment of your own fighter.
“The tactics of coaching another fighter, yelling at a fighter, I don’t respect that or think that’s a good thing but more power to whoever does,” Wood said. “Tim is a good coach. He’s still coming up, learning doing his thing, and I wish the best of luck to him and I have no personal beef with him, but I will after the fact after my fighter whoops your fighter’s ass and tactically it’s this and it’s that. But there were thing said before, I don’t mind going back and saying ‘hey, how’d that turn out?’
“We are the guys behind the guys. We are there to support that guy and what they need. It’s not about us. I don’t need my name mentioned, brought up in any way shape or form. For the fight, if I get some kind of praise or whatever because of a performance, that’s great, I’ll take it but I’m not looking to put myself in those situations.”
Now that the job is done, Wood doesn’t see any need to carry on some kind of rivalry with Welch or O’Malley but don’t expect to hear him shouting instructions to any opposing fighter. Instead, Wood vows to let his fighters handle that themselves.
“It’s not something I’m going to get into a beef with him about,” Wood said. “But I’m confident enough in the fighter that we’re putting out into the fight that I don’t have to do any talking. They’re going to do the talking for me.”
