Sean O’Malley put on a masterclass against Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera, and his coach has explained how. Tim Welch is the head coach of ‘Sugar’ and the pair have been together ever since the champ got into the sport. Welch, a fighter turned coach, knows what it takes. In his latest YouTube video, he broke down the fight against Vera and revealed the tactics they used to break the Ecuadorian fighter down and win the bout.
Sean O’Malley defended his belt for the first time at UFC 299. The featherweight champion took on the only man to beat him inside the octagon. Talking about it, Welch revealed the tactics they used to dominate ‘Chito’ Vera inside the octagon for 25 minutes:
“Early on, I wanted to zap his gas tank, I wanted Sean to keep stabbing him in his guts, keep stabbing him in his heart…so gameplan early on, body shots let’s hit him on his body.”
Take a look at the video (Quotes from 1:59 onwards):
Tim Welch went on to say that since Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera swats punches a lot, it would be difficult to find his chin. So instead, they targeted his body to drain his gas tank.
They knew the fight would go the distance because that’s what Vera would want and they prepared for it with a lot of endurance training during camp for Sean O’Malley.
Right after his big victory against Vera, ‘Suga’ called out featherweight champion Ilia Topuria. However, some weren’t impressed. Top contender Merab Dvalishvili criticized the champion for his call out to a champion from a higher division.
Merab Dvalishvili criticizes Sean O’Malley for not calling him out after UFC 299
Sean O’Malley made an interesting call-out during his octagon interview at UFC 299. He names Ilia Topuria as his next opponent in a featherweight title bout. In a recent interview with Nolan King on X, Merab Dvalishvili revealed that he was upset that the champ did not call him out next:
“Of course I was very surprised, I was mad actually that he don’t call me out or he call Ilia…I just think he don’t wanna mention my name, I think he don’t like my nose.”
Take a look at the video:
Merab Dvalishvili believes Sean O’Malley is ducking him. He is very sure that the fight against Ilia Topuria is not something the UFC will want to make. The Georgian fighter states that O’Malley needs to clean the division out before even thinking of moving up in weight classes.
