On September 14 at UFC 306, Merab Dvalishvili finally gets his shot at the UFC bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, but his attention at the moment is set on O’Malley’s head coach.
Since the UFC announced that bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, would make his first title defense against Merab Dvalishvili at the promotion’s anticipated upcoming event at the Sphere, the two have been relentlessly going back and forth with each other.
O’Malley and Merab aren’t the only two involved in the feud, though, as the champion’s head coach, Tim Welch has fully immersed himself in the rivalry.
Tim Welch explains a story he was told about Merab Dvalishvili
Ahead of the anticipated matchup, Welch has been giving his opinion on the relentless Georgian, and it has turned into a bit of a saga with ‘The Machine’.
When the fight was first announced, the head coach went in on the 33-year-old, saying that O’Malley was going to target his ‘eight-inch nose’ during their fight. This didn’t sit well with Merab who was confused as to why Welch was getting involved in the beef.
Not only that but recently, Welch told a story he’d been told about Merab, further adding fuel to the ever-growing fire.
“I got a message from some guy on Instagram and it says, ‘Hey I have some dirt on Merab’… he gave it to me,” Welch began to state on a recent episode of the Timbo and Sugar Show.
“I said let’s hear it. He said, ‘He has split custody of a cat with his ex-stripper girlfriend. Picks up the cat 10 minutes before I pulled up there,” Welch claimed.
Of course, O’Malley found the story hilarious, but went on to defend the Georgian, admitting it wasn’t that extreme.
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Merab Dvalishvili vows to ‘smack’ Welch over false rumors
Merab and O’Malley have had the chance to face off already as the promotion flew them both out to Vegas to face off in front of the unique Sphere.
‘The Machine’ explained that the UFC told them not to talk during the face-off but ‘Suga’ couldn’t help himself and began to chirp the Georgian.
“We were just doing face-offs and they wanted just face-offs without conversation but of course, once I see Sean he was making fun of me, he was joking with me, he said, ‘Welcome to big show’ and he asked have I ever been main event,” Dvalishvili told MMAFighting.
The 33-year-old reminded the champion of his dominant main event performance against Petr Yan last year, which he claimed O’Malley didn’t react well to.
Historically, Dvalishvili and his team have had problems with opponent teams. Ahead of Aljamain Sterling’s fight against Henry Cejudo, the two teams got involved in a hotel run-in after Cejudo’s coach got too involved in the fight build-up.
With Welch getting too involved for Merab’s liking, he has claimed that he deserves a smack.
“I have a problem with his coach, Tim. He was very disrespectful to me and was doing stupid stuff and not respectful things… Coach your guy, coach your fighter. Don’t be disrespectful to the opponent.
“Even now he’s talking on his podcast, like making fun of my height, making fun of my nose, even now his fans said some stupid things. Nothing is real. He’s making stories up about me, which is not true. He deserves (me) to smack his face,” Dvalishvili explained.
With there just over a month till their highly anticipated meeting at UFC 306, tensions between O’Malley and his team and Dvalishvili are certainly going to continue increasing.