In the previous encounter at UFC 306 last September, the main event was momentarily stopped by referee Herb Dean. This occurred after Merab Dvalishvili reacted to instructions shouted at him from the corner by Sean O’Malley`s head coach, Tim Welch.
This approach was something Welch had employed before, notably when O`Malley secured the bantamweight title against Aljamain Sterling. He repeated it during the Dvalishvili fight, resulting in a warning from Dean. Despite Welch`s vocal efforts, Dvalishvili largely controlled the five-round bout to become the UFC champion.
Following that fight, Merab`s head coach, John Wood, commented that while he respected Welch, he considered the shouting tactic a “bullshit move.”
Now, with Dvalishvili and O’Malley set for their rematch at UFC 316 on June 7th in Newark, N.J. (under a new commission compared to their Las Vegas fight), Wood intends to speak with the referee beforehand about Welch`s past actions. However, he doesn`t anticipate Welch`s potential shouting will actually distract Merab.
“Of course, we`ll have that talk,” Wood stated. “It will be brought up [to the referee], and I think Tim will do it again. But feel free to talk to Merab all you want. It just motivated him more. So I’m good.”
“Tell Merab what you want him to do and he’ll go ahead and do it. It didn’t work [last time]. It’s not going to work again. I’ve stated this before, whatever you’ve got to do to get your fighter up for the game, whatever you think you’ve got to do as a coach to try and take advantage, do it.”
Coaches are technically not permitted to shout at the opposing fighter, but Wood doesn`t expect the referee to take drastic action against Welch if he repeats the behavior at UFC 316.
Wood acknowledged the competitive drive to gain any possible edge during a fight but maintained he would never resort to such tactics to help Dvalishvili defend his title.
“I actually think that’s a rule, you’re not supposed to do that but I mean the old saying, ‘If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying,’” Wood commented. “I would never have to feel I would have to talk to Sean or anybody else Merab is fighting to get an advantage. So go ahead. If it gets you more hits or more clicks on your podcast or your TikTok or whatever those guys do, then great for you. He got a lot of play off of that.”
“I don’t feel or never would feel I need to do any of that stuff for Merab or any of my fighters. But again, there’s a lot of people that have had successful careers and cheated a lot and I’m not saying that Tim’s cheating — maybe bending the rules.”
Wood clarified that he holds no personal issues against Welch or O’Malley, even if shouting at an opponent is considered against the rules. He simply questions the need for such a tactic between two elite fighters, seeing it as an unnecessary distraction.
“I think Tim’s a good coach. I like Tim personally,” Wood said. “I don’t take any offense to it. Do I think it’s stupid? Absolutely but I guess maybe they think that it worked for the [Aljamain Sterling] fight so it’s something we’re going to keep doing then go ahead.”
“But we’ll talk to the referees about it but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem in any way, shape or form.”
Speaking more broadly, Wood believes referees should enforce fight rules more stringently, extending beyond coaches shouting at opponents.
He highlighted that fouls like illegal groin strikes or eye pokes are frequently called but rarely penalized with point deductions, an aspect of the rules Wood finds perplexing.
“To speak on the penalties, the referees always tell you in the back ‘this is your first hard warning, if you do it once, I’m taking a point.’ No one ever takes a point,” Wood stated. “You’ve basically got to rip somebody’s eyeball out or kick their nuts off to even get a point [deducted]. You kick somebody in the balls four times and then maybe they’re talking about it.”
“There’s a lot of stuff with the judging criteria, the reffing criteria and I’m not knocking on the refs. The refs got the hardest job in the world. The referees, I feel bad for them, the shit they have to go through.”
