Matt Serra blasts Sean O'Malley's coach for playing "dirty" tricks during Merab Dvalishvili fight at UFC 306: "Merab would eat him in a street fight"

An odd sequence inside the octagon kicked off the opening moments of Merab Dvalishvili's fight against Sean O'Malley at UFC 306. Dvalishvili seemingly abandoned his gameplan and went back-and-forth with O'Malley's coach, Tim Welch, who was allegedly trying to rattle him with aggressive trash talk.

The strategy may have worked in O'Malley's clash against Alajamain Sterling at UFC 292. In a follow-up footage of the corner work, Welch could be heard misdirecting Sterling by urging the former UFC bantamweight champion to push forward. Moments later, O'Malley dropped him with a strong right hand and landed a few follow-up strikes to walk away with the victory.

Speaking about Welch's tactics during a recent episode of the OverDogs Podcast with Mike Perry, UFC legend Matt Serra said:

"Sean O'Malley is a nice kid but still has a kid's mentality. He's like, 'Well, there's weight classes for a reason,' and Merab would eat him in a street fight. I don't give a f*ck what that ginger [Welch] knows. He would eat them up. I'm not a fan of the guy because when they were fighting he does some dirty f*cking co*rny sh*t. It might not be against the rules but you're being a little b*tch right now."

He added:

"I don't know what world they're from, I don't know what their code is, but I know Merab's. Merab wouldn't be like, 'Oh, wait! We're going to have a street fight. Let's weigh in.' Dude shut the f*ck up!"

Check out Matt Serra's comments below:

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Henry Cejudo speaks about the "embarrassing" moment in his clash against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 298

Henry Cejudo returned to action following a brief retirement of three years to take on then-bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 288. While he lost the fight by split decision, it was his next fight against Merab Dvalishvili that turned out to be a lopsided contest.

Dvalishvili dominated Cejudo in every department, even lifting and throwing him down with ease. For a former two-division champion, being physically manhandled was a frustrating moment.

He shed light on the experience in a recent episode of the Pound for Pound with Kamaru and Henry, stating:

"Merab did a good job. It’s fu*king embarrassing, dude. I got fu*king carried, dude. I got carried like somebody was throwing me into a pool. I’m going for a ride.” [H/t: Bloody Elbow]