Many believed Sean O’Malley’s ability to land a knockout shot would favor him against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306. To everyone’s surprise, the challenger was never close to being finished in the fight and won via a unanimous decision.
A memorable moment from the fight arrived in the first round when Dvalishvili called out Tim Welch for yelling his name. Herb Dean had to step in and give the coach a warning regarding excessive coaching.
While the MMA community is divided over Welch’s unique corner antics, Matt Serra heavily criticized him for his work at UFC 306…
Matt Serra Believes Tim Welch Got Exposed During Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili At UFC 306
During an interview with the new UFC bantamweight champion on the official UFC YouTube channel, Jim Norton and Matt Serra asked him about the first-round drama. Dvalishvili explained the incident to which Serra outright claimed Welch’s move to be shady.
The former UFC champ then stated that the UFC 306 main event exposed Welch as a coach. O’Malley had been winning and mostly knocking out his opponents effortlessly until now. Like the Petr Yan fight, this was one of those rare times when “Suga” was having trouble finding a way to win.
“This fight exposed him as a coach because when your guy is winning and knocking people out, sure, you look like a f*****g hero. When your fighter is obviously losing the fight and he starts losing rounds, Tim Welch was like not wanting to hurt his feelings. Okay, good round. No! it was you’re losing f*****g three rounds. You got to get in his a**. You got to say, you got to this. He was afraid that he did not know how to handle his guy on that many rounds. And I thought his f****g corner work was s**t. So, he exposed himself.”
Instead of keeping it real, Welch kept on appreciating O’Malley which, according to Serra, wasn’t the right thing to do. The UFC Hall of Famer expected the coach to fire up his fighter by telling him that he’s down three rounds and needs to work more to win.
It is safe to assume that Serra isn’t a big fan of Welch’s coaching style. Having said that, one can’t predict whether more aggressive coaching would’ve helped O’Malley emerge victorious at UFC 306.
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