Sean O’Malley recently reflected on the journey that led him to meet his longtime friend and coach, Tim Welch.
Although O’Malley was always a standout athlete, his thinness and disrespect for authority led him to drop out of college football. One of O’Malley’s classmate’s father, a boxing coach, got “Sugar” into martial arts.
O’Malley had early success as an amateur, but his first loss really put him off. The Montana native then decided to leave his hometown and pursue a career in mixed martial arts. To save up for the money to move, O’Malley worked at a facility for intellectually disabled adults for a year. He paid off the loan on his Nissan Altima, had another $2,000 and headed to Arizona.
“I knew there was no way I was going to be able to go professionally and make a living or get to where I wanted to be in Montana,” O’Malley said on his YouTube channel. “I saved up $2,000. I went to work at Spring Meadow Resources, which was a group home for eight adults with intellectual disabilities. [It was]
I would go over to their houses and just help them with chores. I would drive a bus and take them to work and I’d listen to Radiohead and talk to them on a little speaker. It was basically a stand-up comedian driving around talking to them and taking them to the store and helping them find groceries and stuff. But I worked there for like a year and saved up $2,000 and paid off a 2006 Nissan Altima. I paid it off, so I didn’t have any bills. I saved up $2,000 and drove down to Arizona.”
O’Malley first saw Welch fight on a Bellator MMA card and was surprised to learn that Welch was also from Montana. Later, when O’Malley fought in Great Falls, where Welch lives, Welch was cageside commentating. O’Malley submitted a wrestler with an armbar and Welch was impressed. At the afterparty, Welch invited O’Malley to train with him for a week at the MMA Lab in Arizona.
UFC 306: O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili airs Saturday at 10pm ET on ESPN+. Order now!
“I was downstairs in my living room, doing Bellator, and I saw this guy, Tim Welch, from Montana,” O’Malley recalled. “What? Montana! That was crazy. I thought that anyone on TV was a celebrity no matter what. I’m wrestling in Great Falls, where Tim’s from, and I’m fighting a college wrestler there. Tim’s outside doing commentary. The wrestler takes me down, he’s beating me up. I roll for an armbar… I pop his elbow, he taps. I win, I’m ecstatic… And after the afterparty, Tim’s like, ‘Yo, I give this to people, but I don’t take much, but you should come and check out the MMA Lab and give it a try.'”
O’Malley agreed, and spent a week training with Welch while sleeping on an uncomfortable futon. The UFC bantamweight champion admitted he was humbled by the daily training sessions and remembers it as one of the worst yet best experiences of his life.
“I slept on his couch, on his futon, on my uncomfortable futon, for seven days. It was the worst experience of my life, but it was also the best,” O’Malley said. “Every day I went to the gym I got beaten up and beaten up.”
That friendship has endured through the years and played a major role in O’Malley’s rise to stardom. Welch noted that unlike other coaches who work with multiple fighters, all of his attention is focused on his friend, O’Malley. The former Bellator fighter will be mentoring his friend to another successful title defense against Merab Dvalishvili (17-4) at UFC 306 on Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
