Artem Lobov is back from the dead.
Having been eliminated at the preliminary stage of The Ultimate Fighter, the SBG fighter was given a second bite of the cherry when he took on James Jenkins on the latest episode of TUF 22.
“I told Dana White ‘I don’t think I deserve this,'” Lobov told us after the broadcast of the fight which he won via first round TKO.
“I know how The Ultimate Fighter works. When you lose, you leave. I was ready to pack my bags but when I was given the chance, I knew I was going to take it and I was going to repay the opportunity with a nice knockout.
“I was actually a lot calmer for the Jenkins fight. In the first fight, the whole occasion got to me – seeing Dana for the first time and knowing about all the people watching at home. I almost felt that I had to do something extra to impress everyone. It was a lot more tense.
“For the fight against Jenkins, I just reverted back to my normal self and knew I could out-bang him.”
The Russian Hammer looked terrific in his second fight on the show and it seemed like Coach Conor had masterminded the perfect gameplan but Lobov insists he had nothing specific worked out for the fight
“I always have just one gameplan – hit him as much as I can, as hard as I can. Sometimes that doesn’t work and you go out on your shield but when it does work, it’s pretty devastating.”
One noticeable element of the fight was McGregor’s shouts from the bleachers for Lobov to keep his hands up but that advice was essentially ignored.
“I’ve been using that hands-down style for ages,” Lobov explained. “Shots come from awkward angles, it’s harder for my opponents to see them coming and it’s easier to get underhooks when they shoot for a takedown so it’s just how I like to fight.
“Conor was shouting for me to keep them up but he knows me. We’ve sparred many times and he’s aware of my style so I don’t think he was annoyed that I kept them down.”
Lobov’s win was the first knockout finish on this season of The Ultimate Fighter and he believes that his power will have left the other contestants worried.
“What they didn’t show on the episode was that, not only did I knock James out, but earlier on I broke his orbital with my left hook. Fair play to him for carrying on but I think the power I have in my hands would have scared the other guys.
“Nobody wants to fight a knockout artist and I’m most definitely one of those.”
In episode eight, the SBG prospect was seen calling out Andre Fili, a featherweight who trains with Team Alpha Male, and Lobov explained why he singled Fili out.
“They edited it out but, when the scrap happened in the previous episode, the U.S.A. guys were shouting ‘let’s go outside and settle this’ and Andre was one of those involved.
“I thought that was unfair because we’re just TUF contestants. We don’t even have a UFC contract so if we were to have gotten involved and gone outside, we’d have been out on our asses.”
After fishing for a fight with Fili, Lobov turned his attention to Urijah Faber and the Russian-born fighter revealed that it wasn’t just lip-service and that he is genuinely hopeful of a shot at The California Kid.
“The fight with Urijah makes sense for me,” he said. “The guy is five minutes away from retirement and I’ll be happy to give him a nice kick up the arse on his way out.
“If you look at who he’s fighting at UFC 194 (Frankie Saenz), he’s a nobody. Urijah only has one or two fights left in him and he has nothing to prove.
“He’ll just be looking for paydays at this stage of his career and I hope he steps up and takes me up on my offer.”
There is talk of the UFC putting together a card in Russia in 2016 and Lobov is eager to be given the shout to fight at that event, should it be announced.
“It’s been 15 years since I’ve left Russia and I haven’t been back since that day so I’d love the chance to fight in my country of birth. In Russia, they really appreciate fighters and they respect hard-workers like me. I’d jump at the chance to get on that card.
“But you have the potential Croke Park event, as well. Everyone always asks me whether I’d prefer to fight on a UFC card in Dublin or in Russia and it’s a very tough question – ‘do I feel more Irish or Russian?’
“It’s like having a kid and 10 years later, you have another one. Which do you love more? You’d love them the same and I love Ireland and Russia the same.
“Russia is where I was born but I live here now. I went to college here, I met my first girlfriend here. It’s just too difficult a question.”
With The Ultimate Fighter finale scheduled for December 11 and McGregor, Lobov’s training partner, slated for his featherweight unification bout with Jose Aldo the next night, it would have been remiss of us not to ask The Russian Hammer for his prediction for UFC 194.
“Aldo had the chance to fight Conor on one leg at UFC 189. He might have made it into the second round against an injured Conor.
“This time, Conor is fully fit and Aldo dies in one.”
Catch The Ultimate Fighter at 3am GMT every Thursday morning on BT Sport (part of the Setanta pack in Ireland). Repeated at 10pm GMT on Thursdays.
