Saturday night’s UFC 306 main event got off to an unusual start. 

Just moments after the first bell rang in the bantamweight title bout between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili, referee Herb Dean called a temporary halt to proceedings apparently to warn Dvalishvili about comments he made to O’Malley’s corner in the opening seconds.

Speaking to the media post-fight, including The Mac Life, new champion Dvalishvili explained the situation, saying that he had warned O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch to keep quiet during the bout — with Dean also warning Welch regarding comments he had made in the bout’s opening seconds.

The incident came a little over a year after O’Malley defeated Dvalishvili’s close friend and training partner Aljamain Sterling to win the UFC’s 135-pound title when, in that bout, Welch had reportedly issued instructions to Sterling in an attempt to bait him into an exchange with his fighter.

“I was in and I’m fighting, I’m a professional fighter, I’m focused,” Dvalishvili said of the incident in the fight’s opening moments.

“It never happened to me. I never pay attention to the other corner, but Tim’s voice, it was very familiar because he was doing the same thing [with Sterling]. He was doing the same thing, he was doing very disrespectful, ‘Merab, you’ve got to go,’ he was talking sh*t at me.

“I tell him, ‘Stop it,’ and nobody was telling him to stop. He just kept doing this. If you do the same thing in basketball or soccer, they will disqualify you, but I guess here not. But I told the referee, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m a professional, that’s my job, but I said, ‘I’m sorry’ and after I guess he stopped it. After, I don’t care.”