- Sean O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch raved about how prepared the bantamweight champ is for UFC 299
- Welch doesn’t think Marlon Vera has improved heading into UFC 299
Sean O’Malley’s longtime coach Tim Welch discussed the things he expects to see come fight night as they gear up to face Marlon Vera at UFC 299.
Sean is on another level right now
Speaking to Submission Radio, Welch boasted about not really paying too much attention to Vera’s strong attributes. Instead, Welch said O’Malley worked on becoming the best version of himself, which they have already achieved.
“No different at all. We’ve had I think 19 fights together now, 19 fights together and everyone is the same back when he was an amateur,” Welch said. “We have the fight camp and the team a lot more dialed in, Sean’s a lot more disciplined with all these different experts, our strength conditioning coach, his nutrition coach, his recovery is on another level, his confidence is on another level, he’s stronger than he’s ever been but we don’t really think about the rematch that much because really it was so many years ago both fighters have probably changed quite a bit… We just focus on punching the lips.”
“[Vera’s] He’s got some dangerous kicks but after that happened with Chito like everyone after that thought they could leg kick Sean and look how those turned out like Thomas Almeida… planned on stalking Sean down and kicking his legs and look how that worked out so I mean we focus on it a little bit but I brought in some really good sparring partners for Sean. I had him going with some Elite people so it’s going to be nothing that he’s not used to,” he added.
Chito’s bad training camp doesn’t matter
Welch also heard about the rumors of Vera having a bad training camp. However, they are also not focusing on that much as they also had a bad camp against Aljamain Sterling but they ended up winning.
“Yeah I have heard that and I’ve heard of other people that were sparring him were beating him up but really, none of that matters,” Welch pointed out. “What matters is that 25 minutes on that day, that we show up in our sharpest. We had a terrible training camp against Aljo and then we went out and knocked him out so that kind of stuff doesn’t matter it’s not like we’re going to try any harder or any less.”
Chito’s first win was a fluke
In the first match, Vera landed a hard low kick to O’Malley’s right calf which hit the peroneal nerve and resulted in the weakening of his foot. Vera’s corner noticed it and capitalized on the mismatch en route to a TKO victory over “Sugar.”
For Welch, Vera’s win could be called a “fluke” as O’Malley entered the Octagon with a badly wrapped ankle and it just so happened that Chito hit the nerve with one of his kicks.
“If it was the other way around, I’d be like, ‘Sorry dude, we kicked your leg and your leg gave out.’ Fluke? Kind of, because he did hit that nerve but like I said before in my past videos, not making excuses but he was complaining about the ankle wrap it was too tight,” Welch explained. “He complained about it two times and he never complains to me about anything unless it’s really serious… Once he got that nerve kicked, the blood just couldn’t get back to his ankle and if you’ve ever had your foot fall asleep, that’s what he was fighting on because of that ankle wrap so I think that was my fault and we definitely learned from every fight we’ve been in, so learned from that one.”
Chito has not improved a lot
Ultimately, Welch thinks that Vera has not made any astronomical improvement in his game.
“I mean, after watching him vs. Cory Sandhagen, I know that was probably a bad night. I know he had a fight canceled about three weeks prior, so he could have been over trained for that fight,” Welch said. “I think that’s why he looked so bad against Cory Sandhagen. But it doesn’t look like he really got leaps better anywhere,” Welch assessed.
“He had that close fight with Pedro Munoz. But like I said, he’s dangerous and he’s durable and he’s got a strong mind, and a strong mind and being durable can get you really far in fighting. I just don’t think at this day and age, I don’t think you can be the type of athlete ‘Chito’ is and become a champion. I think you have to be a pretty supreme athlete to be a champion of the world nowadays,” he added.
Sean would shut people up
O’Malley has a lot to gain at UFC 299 if he ends up winning. It would be a successful first title defense and an equalizer for his loss to Vera back in 2020. For Welch, all of that is true but ultimately, “Sugar” is about to make a statement at UFC 299.
“I think it’s just going to be a good statement,” every single post since that fight happened people are talking about it so it’s going to be a good statement. It’s going to shut a lot of people up when he whoops Chito’s ass,” Welch concluded.
After weeks of back and forths, O’Malley and Vera will finally take on each other this weekend at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida.
Watch Welch’s full interview below:
