Merab Dvalishvili has made his feelings towards Tim Welch extremely clear.
The Georgian will face Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 306, which is set for The Sphere, Las Vegas on September 14.
Ahead of the bout, the 33-year-old spoke with Damon Martin of MMAFighting and immediately expressed his delight of finally being able to compete for UFC gold. He said:
“Finally, to be fighting for the belt. Now, I feel relief because before that I didn’t know if I was fighting for the belt. You know, I was pushing, I was making all the funny videos and I was stressed, man. I was stressed because when I asked the UFC 'If I beat Henry Cejudo, will I get the title shot?'
“They told me ‘Nothing is guaranteed here.’ And, even when I beat people (like) Petr Yan, they skipped me and they make (the) fight for the title (with) number six, Chito Vera. I wasn’t sure man, I was very depressed and now finally feels good and I'm fighting for the belt and I'm working hard, like, always and I can’t wait.”
It is certainly not unheard of for there to be bad blood between two athletes heading into a contest but Dvalishvili extends his dislike to O’Malley’s team, and in particular, Tim Welsh. Footage emerged of O’Malley and Dvalishvili sharing some heated words following their faceoff outside of The Sphere. Discussing where the animosity started, Dvalishvili said:
“I have a problem with his coach, Tim. He was very disrespectful to me and he was doing stupid (stuff) and not respectful (things). Any real coach should never do that, whatever he was doing. Try do the same thing in basketball or let’s try to do the same thing in a football game. They will give you a disqualification. Only the UFC can you get out of this. Coach your guy, coach your fighter, don’t be disrespectful to the opponent. What kind of people does this? Only a snake person does this.
“Even now he’s talking on his podcast, like making fun of my height, making fun of my nose, even now he some fans said some stupid things. Nothing is real. He’s making up some stories about me, which is not true. He deserves (me) to smack his face. That’s what I told Sean O’Malley. ‘Hey Sean, tell your coach to shut his mouth,’ because I was so pissed when I saw all these videos, how he does stupid things, how he talks stupid. I told him to shut his mouth.”
Welch first put fuel on feud when he alleged several stories about Dvalishvili, all of which the Georgian has said are untrue.
You can see the full interview below:
