On April 7, in the main event of UFC 223, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson will battle for the UFC lightweight title. The winner of this fight is then likely to battle the current lightweight champion Conor McGregor – who will probably be stripped in the coming weeks – somewhere down the line.
According to McGregor’s main training partner Artem Lobov, McGregor has no real preference as to who wins this fight. He’ll gladly fight either man.
“Conor, he doesn’t care who he fights,” Lobov said on the latest stacked episode of BJ Penn Radio. “I think he has proved and shown that on a number of occasions. When [Jose] Aldo went running, [Chad] Mendes stepped in. That was a terrible matchup for Conor given the fact that he was coming off an ACL injury. He was still injured, and his ACL was torn a couple weeks before that matchup. He couldn’t wrestle at all in the lead-up to that fight. So the wrestler was the worst possible outcome for him, and he still didn’t blink and took him on.”
“When Rafael dos Anjos went running as well and Nate [Diaz] stepped in, he had no problem. And at the time as well, there was offers Aldo was being offered, but he didn’t want it. Frankie [Edgar] was offered the fight, and he didn’t want it also. Conor didn’t really care who was gonna step in. So he has shown that many times, and it’s the same thing in this case. Khabib or Tony, doesn’t really matter to him.”
While Lobov assures McGregor has no preference when it comes to the UFC 223 main event, he himself is pulling for Nurmagomedov – simply because he thinks a Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor fight could be a bigger deal.
“As for the fans, I feel that the fans probably would prefer Khabib matchup,” he said. “They feel that’s a better fight. And to be honest, I would really like to see that fight also. And especially if that fight was to take place in Russia, that would be crazy. That would be a raucous style matchup. That would be just incredible. So I would love to see that, of course.”
What do you think of Artem Lobov’s on the Conor McGregor – Khabib Nurmagomedov – Tony Ferguson situation?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/22/2018.