Watch newly released video of Tim Welch distracting Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 306
Merab Dvalishvili wasn’t happy with Sean O’Malley’s corner at UFC 306 and now everyone has a better idea why.
On Thursday, UFC released new footage of Dvalishvili’s verbal altercation with O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch at the start of their bantamweight title fight that took place Sept. 14 at Sphere in Las Vegas. Dvalishvili was visibly agitated soon after the opening bell, gesturing towards O’Malley’s corner, and referee Herb Dean warned him not argue with Welch in the middle of the action.
Watch the clip below.
In the newly released video, Welch can clearly be seen and heard yelling at Dvalishvili, though it’s unclear if he was attempting to distract Dvalishvili and perhaps interfere with instructions from Dvalishvili’s corner or if the comments were meant for O’Malley as Welch later claimed.
“Merab, you might need to be patient, bud,” Welch said.
When Dvalishvili reacted to Welch, he was admonished by Dean, prompting Dvalishvili’s cornerman Aljamain Sterling to protest, “[Welch is] talking to him, Herb! He’s talking to him! Herb, Herb, he’s talking to him! He’s talking to him, Herb!”
Dean then replied, “Do your job, I’ll do mine.”
“That’s our callout, sir, for him,” Welch explained in the moment.
Welch spoke about the incident after the fight and said he didn’t feel he did anything against the rules.
“So I didn’t realize there was a rule that if you have a callout, it can’t be the other guy’s name,” Welch said. “I told Herb that some of our callouts have Merab’s name in it, and he’s like, ‘Nope, nope, nope.’ Didn’t know that. Would love to see that f*cking rule.”
Regardless of any potential misbehavior on Welch’s part, his actions did little to influence the result of the fight. Dvalishvili utilized his grappling to dominate the majority of the contest en route to defeating O’Malley via unanimous decision and becoming UFC bantamweight champion.
Up next for Dvalishvili, he goes for the first defense of his title when he takes on the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov in the co-main event of UFC 311 next Saturday in Inglewood, Calif.