Love him or hate him, Conor McGregor training partner Artem Lobov has proven he can hang with the best fighters on earth. Sure, he’s experienced some tough losses of late, but his going five rounds with Cub Swanson is proof enough that he is absolutely no slouch.
Lobov’s professional record, of course, would suggest otherwise. The Russian-born Irishman has actually lost more times than he’s won, as he currently sits at 13-14-1 overall.
Although this record looks unimpressive, Lobov assures it’s simply a product of his being willing to take risks that other fighters are not. He made his case on a recent episode of MMAJunkie Radio.
“My record, for example, it represents a tough road,” Lobov said. “It represents a guy that was willing to fight when no one else would. When you ask to go to some other country and fight their local best guy, and you know the judges are going to be his friend and the referee is going to be his coach, the head of commission guys is probably going to be his relative or something like that, and you’re asked to do that for 100 Euros.”
“Nobody wants to do that. There was only one guy that was willing to answer the call every time, and that was me, so my record represents that – a true fighter, a real fighter.”
For Lobov the goal has always been to entertain the fans. Victory, meanwhile, has been the secondary goal. This is the attitude with which he continues to fight heading into his UFC 223 showdown with Alex Caceres.
“People want to be entertained,” Lobov said on a recent episode of BJ Penn Radio. “It’s not easy to sit through three hours of fights, especially if for a majority part of those three hours, people are just gonna lay on top of each other, cuddling or whatever they are doing in there and not much attacking.”
“People wanna see action. They wanna see fights. They wanna see real fights. And that’s what I provide. This is the Russian Hammer brand at this stage. When you see my name on the card, you know that you’re gonna get action.”
Do you think Artem Lobov can return to the win column against Alex Caceres at UFC 223?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/26/2018.