Merab Dvalishvili, Tim Welch explain bizarre (and heated) back-and-forth to start UFC 306 title fight
With UFC 306 complete, Tim Welch admits he knew Merab Dvalishvili “was gonna be a problem,” which might explain his motivation for doing what he did at the start of Saturday night’s main event at Sphere in Las Vegas.
The puzzling moment occurred just 10 seconds into Dvalishvili’s title fight with bantamweight champion Sean O'Malley as the challenger pointed and started yelling in the direction of O’Malley’s corner, prompting referee Herb Dean to call time and admonish Dvalishvili. As it unfolded, the UFC 306 commentary team of Joe Rogan, Daniel Cormier and Jon Anik was baffled.
In-cage audio during the broadcast shed some light on the bizarre moment, with Dean telling Dvalishvili, “Merab, don’t start this. Do not talk to him. That’s my job.” Dean also addressed Welch after restarting the fight. “Do your job, I’ll do mine,” he told O’Malley’s head coach.
So what happened and what was said? Welch attempted to explain Monday and downplayed the situation in a video on his YouTube channel.
“First round (he) comes out, and what I said to Merab was, ‘Merab, you need to be patient.’ And that’s when he freaked out,” Welch said. “He started bucking himself around. I was like, ‘Holy cow, I just said Merab, be patient.’ He must’ve been anticipating that a little bit, but I really wasn’t going out of my way to [makes noises] yell. But I did say that. I guess there is an excessive coaching (rule), but I told Herb Dean some of our callouts have Merab’s name in it, and he said, ‘Nope, nope, nope.’ So, that ended.”
In explaining the situation from his point of view, Dvalishvili admitted video of Welch calling out good friend Aljamain Sterling’s name at UFC 292 was on his mind.
“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 wrote on X. “I made no eye contact with O’Malleys 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!”
Welch didn’t expect Dvalishvili’s reaction to be as animated as it was.
“I was surprised at how much he freaked out,” Welch said. “He let his emotions freaking get to him in there, but it didn’t do anything. Didn’t matter one bit. Like I said, we knew how good that guy was.”
Welch is right in that his early-fight taunting had no effect on Dvalishvili, who went on to dominate O’Malley for 25 minutes and claim the bantamweight title by unanimous decision.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.