John Wood plans to warn referee about Sean O'Malley's coach at UFC 316 but 'feel free to talk to Merab Dvalishvili all you want' |

05/06/2025 16:00 -

Just moments after the UFC 306 main event started this past September, referee Herb Dean paused the action after Merab Dvalishvili reacted to Sean O'Malley's head coach Tim Welchshouting instructions to him during the fight.

It was a tactic Welch previously used when O'Malley won the bantamweight title with a second-round knockout of Aljamain Sterling and he did the same thing during the fight with Dvalishvili. Dean admonished the coach for his actions and in the end, all the shouting in the world from Welch didn't stop Dvalishvili from largely dominating the five-round fight to become UFC champion.

Afterwards, Dvalishvili's head coach John Wood told MMA Fighting he had a lot of respect for Welch but called his actions a "bullshit move."

Now Dvalishvili and O'Malley are set to run it back in the UFC 316 main event on June 7 with the card taking place in Newark, N.J. Their previous first fight took place in Las Vegas, which means an all new commission is in charge this time around. While he doesn't expect anything Welch says to actually serve as a distraction, Wood plans to warn the referee before the fight starts just so there are no surprises.

"Of course, we'll have that talk," Wood told MMA Fighting. "Of course, it will be brought up [to the referee] and I think Tim will do it again. But feel free to talk to Merab all you want. It just gave him more motivation. So I'm good.

"Tell Merab what you want him to do and he'll go ahead and do it. It didn't work [last time]. It's not going to work again. I've stated this before, whatever you've got to do to get your fighter up for the game, whatever you think you've got to do as a coach to try and take advantage, do it."

Coaches are actually not permitted to shout at the opposing fighter, but Wood doesn't expect the referee to take some kind of drastic action against Welch if he decides to start talking during UFC 316.

For his part, Wood understands trying to get every competitive advantage possible during a fight, but he promises he would never stoop to those kinds of actions to help Dvalishvili retain his title.

"I actually think that's a rule, you're not supposed to do that but I mean the old saying, 'If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying,'" Wood said. "I would never have to feel I would have to talk to Sean or anybody else Merab is fighting to get an advantage. So go ahead. If it gets you more hits or more clicks on your podcast or your TikTok or whatever those guys do, then great for you. He got a lot of play off of that.

"I don't feel or never would feel I need to do any of that stuff for Merab or any of my fighters. But again, there's a lot of people that have had successful careers and cheated a lot and I'm not saying that Tim's cheating — maybe bending the rules."

Wood says he has no personal issues against Welch or O'Malley for that matter even if shouting at the opposing fighter is deemed illegal. He just doesn't see why that needs to be a tactic used between two of the best fighters in the world because he sees it as an unnecessary distraction.

"I think Tim's a good coach. I like Tim personally," Wood said. "I don't take any offense to it. Do I think it's stupid? Absolutely but I guess maybe they think that it worked for the [Aljamain Sterling] fight so it's something we're going to keep doing then go ahead.

"But we'll talk to the referees about it but I don't think it's going to be a problem in any way, shape or form."

Speaking in more general terms, Wood believes referees should crack down on the rules more often during fights and that goes far beyond O'Malley's coach yelling at his fighter's opponents.

From illegal groin strikes to eye pokes, fouls are routinely called during fights but rarely penalized by a point deduction and that's one aspect of the rules that Wood has never totally understood.

"To speak on the penalties, the referees always tell you in the back 'this is your first hard warning, if you do it once, I'm taking a point.' No one ever takes a point," Wood said. "You've basically got to rip somebody's eyeball out or kick their nuts off to even get a point [deducted]. You kick somebody in the balls four times and then maybe they're talking about it.

"There's a lot of stuff with the judging criteria, the reffing criteria and I'm not knocking on the refs. The refs got the hardest job in the world. The referees, I feel bad for them, the shit they have to go through."