Sean O’Malley’s coach discusses Suga’s hip injury after being ‘exposed’ by former UFC champion over shoddy cornerwork

Following his unanimous decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili, the former bantamweight champion revealed that he had actually suffered a torn labrum in his hip during training camp.

The popular striker is now set to go under the knife next month with his head coach, Tim Welch, revealing the extent to which the damaged hip impacted their UFC 306 training camp.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesSean O’Malley’s head coach Tim Welch opens up on hip injurySean O’Malley is set to undergo surgery on October 3, and whilst the veteran coach has “no excuses” for the lackluster performance at The Sphere, he did tell ESPN MMA that the injury had a major impact on preparation for the wrestling-heavy style of Merab Dvalishvili.

“Suga is getting surgery on his hip labrum soon, I’m excited for that because then we’ll finally be able to get back to real grappling practices like we used to in previous years.

“The past year, we’ve [only] been able to do little bits like 10-second goes, 15-second goes from the ground [because] that’s all his hip and his back could handle.

“Getting that fixed, and getting back to real grappling, real Jiu-jitsu, real wrestling, I’m excited for that,” stated coach Welch, before revealing that Suga even required multiple cortisone shots in order to stop the title fight from being postponed.

“He got some cortisone shots to mask everything so we really couldn’t spend a lot of time on the mat like we have done in previous years… Just really doing a full wrestling practice or a full jiu-jitsu practice, we’ve been working around the injury as best we can.

“We were still able to train on the fence a little bit, we were still training short goes on the ground but it’ll be nice to get this out of the way so we can train how we actually want to.”

O’Malley himself shared how the torn labrum occurred around 10 weeks before the UFC 306 main event, although Welch added that the injury had been “lingering there for a while,” beforehand.

HARSH WORDS: Former champions slam controversial refereeing in UFC 306 title fight“I think he had surgery scheduled 8 weeks ago for right after the fight but like I said, no excuses. It didn’t hinder him in the fight, [and] we did have a great fight camp, the best we could have had, Merab just did a good job.”

Matt Serra roasts Tim Welch over corner advice during title fightWhilst Welch is indeed one of the best coaches in the entire sport, that isn’t to say that his UFC 306 cornerwork was without criticism.

In fact, former UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra has launched a scathing attack on coach Welch over the advice he offered O’Malley heading into the fifth and final round.

“This fight exposed him as a coach because when your guy is winning and knocking people out, sure, you look like a f**** hero,” Serra lamented via the latest episode of UFC Unfiltered.

“When your fighter is obviously losing the fight and he starts losing rounds, Tim Welch was not wanting to hurt his feelings. ‘OK, good round’ – No, you’re losing f***** three rounds. You’ve got to get in his a**!”

According to the judges’ scorecards, as the bell sounded for the final round; O’Malley was down 3-1, 3-1, and 4-0 – to put it bluntly, Suga needed to up the pressure and get Dvalishvili out of there.

WHAT: Merab Dvalishvili claims dodgy yogurt caused O’Malley to hurt him to the body at UFC 306

“You’ve got to say; he was afraid that he didn’t know how to handle his guy on that many rounds. And I thought his f***** cornerwork was sh**… He exposed himself. You [Dvalishvili] took care of business, and Tim Welch had no answers for his fighter.”

Despite Sean O’Malley being out of action for around a year, that hasn’t stopped a whole host of top contenders from calling him out, including fan-favorite bantamweight Cory Sandhagen.

EXPLAINED: UFC manager claims Sean O’Malley’s next fight will be for the title, but not against DvalishviliRelated Topics