Sean O'Malley's coach reveals severity of hip injury

Yesterday at 22:36

Merab Dvalishvili's dominance at UFC 306 could be marked with an asterisk after further details on Sean O'Malley's injury was released.

'The Machine' put on one of the best performances of his career at the Las Vegas Sphere. The Georgian managed to capture bantamweight gold, making it look incredibly easy in the process. 

However, reports surfaced days after the event claiming that Sean O'Malley was badly injured heading into the bout. Tim Welch — the long-term friend and coach of O'Malley — detailed the difficulties his student had doing grappling drills in training.

"'Suga's getting surgery on his hip labrum soon," Welch said. "I'm excited for that because then we'll finally be able to get back to real grappling practices like we used to."

"The past year, we've [only] been able to do little bits. Probably 10 second goes, 15 second goes from the ground. That's all really his hip and his back could handle."

"So, getting that fixed and getting back to real grappling practices. Real jiu-jitsu, real wrestling practices, I'm excited for that."

Welch later revealed more details on how O'Malley has been coping with the injury.

"He got some cortisone shots to mask everything. We really couldn't spend a lot of time on the mat like we have in previous years..."

"We've just been working around that injury the best we can... It'll be nice to get this out of the way so we can get back to actually training how we actually want to."

Related: Marlon Vera hints at how Sean O'Malley could have beaten Merab Dvalishvili

Sean O'Malley vs. Jose Aldo?

Further along in the interview, Tim Welch discussed the possibility of Sean O'Malley facing MMA legend Jose Aldo upon his return.

Welch expects 'Suga' to fight sometime in the summer of 2025.

"Realistically, the summer," Welch said regarding O'Malley's return. "I'm not sure how long these hip labrums take to heal, but we're going to do it completely right and not really rush it."

"Hopefully by June or July, we're ready to fight again and then make another run at the title."

Though much can change between now and his returning bout, Tim Welch has a number of opponents he'd like to see O'Malley face next.

"Cory Sandhagen is such a sweet fight. We knew that fight was going to happen eventually."

"Henry Cejudo. We're in the same city, so we would really get pumped up for that fight. Beating up that little dude..."

"Even [Deiveson] Figueiredo, if that one was possible in the summer... Yeah, that would be crazy standing across from Jose Aldo."

"We've been fans of him for a long time. But, that's definitely, I think, a winnable fight for us, also. Any of those would be really sweet."