Tag: Tim Welch

Tim Welch reveals his side of Sean O’Malley’s sparring session with Alexandre Pantoja

Naturally Tim Welch sides with Sean O’Malley’s version of events from a 2017 sparring session between future UFC champs.

[autotag]Tim Welch[/autotag] weighed in on a past sparring session between UFC champions [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] and [autotag]Alexandre Pantoja[/autotag].

Bantamweight champ O’Malley and flyweight champ Pantoja have previously bickered about a sparring session that allegedly took place in 2017, with each claiming that they got the better of the other. O’Malley’s version is that he put Pantoja down in Round 1 of the session but eventually tired and got choked out in Round 3.

As Pantoja (27-5 MMA, 11-3 UFC) gears up for his second title defense against Steve Erceg (12-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 301 headliner, the topic was brought up again. Pantoja claimed he smashed O’Malley (18-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC), who responded by reminding him that he stopped him in the first round.

O’Malley’s coach, Welch, chimed in, naturally siding with his fighter’s version of the story.

“Not really in fight camp at all,” Welch said on his YouTube channel. “Going to sparring maybe to get a few rounds and Henry (Cejudo’s) like, ‘Hey, you want to spar this guy?’ So Sean says, ‘Yeah, I’ll spar him.’ They spar one round, Sean comes out off the rip, puts him down. Puts him down in the first minute. Now mind you this is – I don’t even remember what year this is.

“I don’t even think Sean was a professional yet. He might have been a professional just breaking in. …Sean comes out there, bounces around, young buck. Boom, hits him with a liver shot, puts him down. Pantoja has to stop. He has to wave it off. He has to go over to Henry, kneel down, call it off. I mean, there’s a video – never released video, but he puts him down.”

UFC 301 (Pay-per-view/ESPN/ESPN+) takes place Saturday at Rio Arena in Rio de Janeiro.

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 301.

Tim Welch takes blame for Sean O’Malley’s leg injury in Marlon Vera loss, points to ankle wraps as reason

Coach Tim Welch takes responsibility for Sean O’Malley injuring his leg against Marlon Vera in his lone career loss.

[autotag]Tim Welch[/autotag] takes responsibility for [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] injuring his leg against [autotag]Marlon Vera[/autotag] in his lone-career loss.

O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) suffered a first-round TKO to Vera (21-8-1 MMA, 15-7 UFC) in August 2020, after “Chito” kicked his peroneal nerve and finished him moments later on the ground in Round 1.

O’Malley insisted the loss was a fluke, but Welch thinks it may not have just been a freak accident. Welch explains that O’Malley’s ankle wrap situation was likely the cause – and he takes the blame for it.

“I got to take a lot of the blame on this,” Welch said on his YouTube channel. “One of the UFC people wrapped his ankles, and a couple times – ‘Sugar’ usually never complains about anything. A couple times he said ‘This ankle wrap is too tight.’ He said it twice. After the second time, I had the guys cut a little bit on the top, cut a little bit on the ankle, and I thought for sure it would loosen up.

“We were done with our warmup, they said we were walking in five minutes, so we did feel a little rushed. Looking back, 100 percent, I should’ve said ‘Hey, take that wrap off, and let’s re-do it. The fight can wait, let’s re-do this wrap’ because if you’ve ever had your ankle wrapped too tight, the blood just can’t flow to it, and it feels like your foot is literally falling asleep. So imagine being in a fistfight and your foot is fully asleep.”

Bantamweight champion O’Malley runs things back with Vera for his first title defense in Saturday’s UFC 299 (pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+) main event at Kaseya Center in Miami.

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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 299.