Sean O'Malley's coach: Merab Dvalishvili loss humbled both of us and 'forced us to level up'
Sean O'Malley is going into his big title fight rematch with Merab Dvalishvili more focused than before. (Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC)
Sean O'Malley has changed his ways ahead of his upcoming UFC title rematch against Merab Dvalishvili.
O'Malley has been out of action since September, when Dvalishvili became one of only two fighters to ever defeat him, winning a unanimous decision at UFC 306 and stealing away the UFC bantamweight title. On June 7, the pair rematch for the belt at UFC 316 inside Newark, New Jersey's Prudential Center.
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According to O'Malley's longtime head coach Tim Welch, the loss had a significant impact on O'Malley, especially compared to when "Sugar" previously fell short against Marlon "Chito" Vera in 2020.
"I've seen it a lot after a fighter loses — it literally just demoralizes them," Welch said Wednesday on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show." "You see their confidence go away. But with Sean, he's not like that. He's a mentally very strong kid, and I knew for a fact that he was going to figure out what's going to be the best mentality I can have after this, and he's going to do that.
"It forced him to change a lot of things in his life, and it forced him to just kind of level up. It did kind of humble both of us and it forced us to level up, so his mindset has been so good. His happiness doesn't come from winning or losing his fights. His happiness comes from his relationships with his family and his health and stuff. So I knew the type of kid he is — I'm around him enough. It's not like he went out there and got his ass kicked [by Dvalishvili]. He didn't walk out of there with black eyes and bruised ribs, a cut face. He was more healthy after that fight, I think, than any of our other fights.
"Tactical mistakes, [he] got tired, was super bummed out for a little bit, but it definitely woke up a different 'Sugar.'"
O'Malley, 30, had a relatively short title reign that began in August 2023 with his second-round stoppage of Aljamain Sterling. He successfully defended his belt once in a lopsided rematch against Vera, but Welch notes that his pupil battled injuries throughout that stretch which led to "horrible camps."
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Yet O'Malley's biggest changes before the Dvalishvili rematch have arguably been mental.
Welch has been impressed to see the former champ plow through 2025 without the use of marijuana or social media, which according to Welch, have led to O'Malley seeming much happier in life overall.
"He quit weed completely," Welch said. "He was really sore two weeks ago. I'm like, 'Hey, we got this thing. It's called herbs and it will help you relax a little bit.' He's like, 'Nope. Not doing it.'
"He just completely quit the weed and completely got off Instagram, Snapchat and X. Before, every time we're doing something, his following's so big, he makes such good money on social media — every time we're doing something, it's like, 'Oh, what kind of content creation? What kind of funny reels can we do?' Always thinking about that. Now he's not thinking about that kind of stuff at all. I think he's a lot more at peace."
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Although the social media departure is likely to stick, Welch believes the marijuana abstention will probably be a temporary pursuit, as O'Malley doesn't feel it hinders him as much.
"I think he definitely doesn't want to be back on social media," Welch said of O'Malley. "He says the amount of anxiety that he doesn't have anymore just because of not being on Snapchat, Instagram, X — he's really, really liking it. He has more time to hang out with his kids and just focus on things that are healthy for your mind instead of everybody else's input."
Dvalishvili has already matched O'Malley's title reign with a single title defense, having dispatched Umar Nurmagomedov via unanimous decision in January.
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Stylistically, the matchup against Dvalishvili is as tough as any for a knockout artist like O'Malley, demanding he fends off the consistent pressure wrestling of Georgia's "Machine."
In many ways, UFC 316 could be a make-or-break moment for O'Malley. Back-to-back defeats to Dvalishvili would make a trilogy almost entirely unjustifiable.
However Welch said both he and O'Malley have done their best to ignore what people have said about them leading up to the fight. He, too, is feeling more confident in their preparation.
"I wouldn't say [UFC 316 has been] less stressful just because of the guy we're dealing with," Welch said. "Merab is such a tank. But I'm not waking up in the middle of the night like I was before the fight with 'Aljo' [Sterling], constantly stressed about that fight. I feel a little bit better for it.
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"S****y camp, great camp, it's whatever's going to happen in that 25 minutes on that night. So I'm not really playing into it that much. Just trying to be in the moment this whole week, next [week for] fight week. Focus on what we can control, then just go see what happens."
Dvalishvili has only lost four times in his 23-fight career, with three of those loses coming in decisions. The champion's chin has yet to be fully cracked, despite a few scares along the way. Yet in the O'Malley sequel, Welch expects his man to get the job done and make history, ultimately setting up a trilogy.
"He's good at getting in a position, just doing enough damage to not get you stood up," Welch said. "He's not going to beat your ass. He's going to make you tired. He might knee your thigh a couple times. He's not going to beat your ass but he's going to dominate the positions. He's an expert at winning 25 minutes.
"The only person I've really seen hurt him is [O'Malley] hurt him in the fifth round. Marlon Moraes, they cracked him and stuff, but later on in these championship rounds, [O'Malley] gave him his best go."
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From the UFC's ability to gatekeep credentials by upkeeping access-style media to the not-so-quiet encouragement to not ruffle any feathers in this space for the sake of your job, there are a ton of reasons why you're not seeing the questions you'd like asked or the kind of content and reporting you prefer. As one of the few media members in this space who has regularly done historical work for roughly a decade, I completely agree when people point out this sport's lack of respect and presence for its past. That said, I can also attest to the effects of the UFC schedule as someone who covers it more in-depth than most from week to week, as it's been harder and harder to find time to break away from this grind and the constant curveballs it throws. 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Even if a media member does want to ask a pertinent question, some of the only opportunities they have to ask them are at pre-fight press conferences that are full of mouth-breathing morons who will immediately shout down questions and cheer on whatever White's responses are (Where are the anti-Vince McMahon days of the WWE Attitude Era when you need it, right?). Although you can argue that there are much better venues and ways to try and bring real questions to the table, the UFC's relentless schedule makes pressers one of the only opportunities considering that White barely shows up for his own events anymore, as well as the fact that most surviving media companies were already forced to cut down their travel budgets due to the promotion's insane output of events – – the umpteenth example of how the schedule affects quality from all sides. 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Big UFC weekends with multiple shows and extensive fan interaction events whether you're a "Fight Club" member or not? Yeah-no. You now get Power Slap on Friday night and early access to insanely inflated ticket prices for cards that seem like they're being held together by band-aids at this point. Remember all the dunking the UFC did on boxing for having top-heavy cards? Yeah. They don't have that ammunition anymore. Long gone are the Dana White Vlog days of "we make the fights the fans want to see." Long gone is that mafia-like family feel that both the fighters and the fans embraced under a Fertitta-run UFC during the company's golden era when White regularly extended the amount of contracted bonuses during random Fight Night cards when he felt like it. Combat sports can maintain its rebel-like facade as much as you want it to, but not even something as wild as MMA is safe from the corporification that swallows up other spaces. Again: I don't mean to be bleak about all this as I, myself, am still investing and gambling with my career and well being on this sport's behalf. However, this all smacks like the end of the film "Casino," where Robert De Niro talks about the UFC's backyard – Las Vegas – and how nothing was ever the same after the corporations came in and took over. Perhaps it's the parallels of Ace Rothstein's job to mine, but the ending scene of that film serves as such a solid analog to the problems I wrote about in this article that I'll end things by sharing it so you can judge for yourself. This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: The relentless UFC schedule and corporatization of combat | Opinion
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