Matt Serra: Tim Welch’s ‘corner work was sh*t’ during Sean O’Malley’s UFC 306 loss to Merab Dvalishvili

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Former UFC champ Matt Serra was not impressed with Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch at UFC 306.

Merab Dvalishvili defeated O’Malley to capture the bantamweight title in the main event of the promotion’s debut card at Sphere in Las Vegas. Serra, who cornered Dvalishvili on many occasions in the past, reacted to the fight — and more specifically, Welch’s cornering efforts on his UFC Unfiltered podcast with comedian Jim Norton.

“This fight exposed him as a coach because when your guy is winning and knocking people out, sure, you look like a f*cking superhero,” Serra said. “When your fighter is obviously losing the fight — and starts losing rounds — Tim Welch was, like, not wanting to hurt [O’Malley’s] feelings. ‘OK, good round,’ no, you’re losing f*cking three rounds. You got to get in his ass. ... He was afraid that he did not know how to handle his guy [with] that many rounds, and I thought his f*cking corner work was shit.

“So he exposed himself. [Dvalishvili] took care of business and Tim Welch had no answers for his fighter.”

O’Malley said he had “zero excuses” for his performance in the aftermath, and said he would take an extended period of time off following the second loss of his pro career. “Sugar” then revealed that he suffered a torn labrum, and will be heading for surgery on Oct. 3.