Merab Dvalishvili's coach John Wood verbally sparred with Tim Welch
In a current interview with Mixed martial arts FightingSyndicate MMA head coach John Wood weighed in on Welch's in-fight taunts towards Dvalishvili.
“That's not our task,” Wood stated of Dvalishvili's response to Welch. “I'm not trashing Tim for anything he does. I appreciate Tim, however it is a bullshit relocation. I was chewing out Tim throughout the cage a number of times when Sean would screw up, and I was ensuring Sean heard me calling out whatever that he wished to toss.
“When he would do something silly, I captured myself a number of times in the battle going ‘Tim, did you teach him that? That was awful!' [shouting] throughout the cage.” (h/t MMA Fighting
Wood then described why coaches trash-talking opposing fighters is off-limits, after Dvalishvili's occurrence with Welch.
“Fighters exist to trash talk, to develop the battle, do their thing, whether they like each other, do not like each other, I do not believe it's a location for coaches to get in,” Wood stated of Dvalishvili/O'Malley. “Tim was doing some things ahead of time like at the weigh-ins, he was talking shit to Merab on cam, stating things which's fine. If you truly seem like you require that psychological edge and specifically you might see how delicate Sean was and how fast he broke, possibly they do.”
O'Malley will take a prolonged break to fix a torn labrum suffered ahead of UFC 306. Dvalishvili will prepare to most likely face Umar Nurmagomedov in his very first title defense.
