Artem Lobov speaks to SportsJOE about his fight to get into the TUF house

Well that was a shock.

Artem Lobov would surely have been an early favourite when the 32 fighters were named for The Ultimate Fighter Season 22.

Casual fans may not know his name but for those following Conor McGregor’s career, you will have definitely seen Lobov in the background at some stage as The Russian Hammer is McGregor’s main sparring partner.

https://instagram.com/p/7E4DrmrzpJ/?taken-by=thenotoriousmma

But in the first round of fights to get into the TUF 22 house, Lobov came unstuck in a thrilling bout when he lost out in the tightest of majority decisions.

“I didn’t complain (about the decision),” Lobov said. “I know that once you let it go to the judges then you can’t complain. It is what it is.

“I’ve had that in the past where even clearer decisions didn’t go my way. This one was very 50/50. You could argue both ways but I’ve had decisions that should have been a clear win for me that didn’t go my way. Even fights that I’ve won have been overturned so I’m well used to that side of things. If you leave it in the hands of the judges then you can only blame yourself.”

Lobov can count himself unlucky with his preliminary fight as he was drawn against highly touted Frenchman Mehdi Baghdad and the seeding process somewhat confused the SBG fighter.

“I have no idea, to be honest. I’m guessing it was either Sean Shelby or Joe Silva that put the match-ups together. But I don’t really know how it worked out. If I’m honest, I probably was expecting someone easier than that.

“Common sense would suggest to me that they would want me in the house; obviously with me being Conor’s main sparring partner, it’s just good TV. It just makes it that little bit more interesting. So I thought, right, they’re probably going to give me an easy enough guy and I’m just going to knock him out quickly before moving on to the house. But that obviously wasn’t the case, which is kind of good because I’m sure when people did see my name there they probably thought this guy is going to get looked after now, so that wasn’t the case. That answers that question.”

As it stands, Lobov will not feature on TUF 22 but that could change depending on injuries to European fighters and Lobov is confident that his slugfest left enough of an impact on Dana White to warrant a recall if a stand-in is required and the fact that he is pictured in a TUF jersey in a teaser showing a scene from a later episode could mean that that very well did happen. 

“Dana White has seen my fight and he seemed very pleased after it. I spoke to him a little bit and he felt that mine was the best fight out of all the ones to get into the house.

“At the end of the day, it’s the entertainment business and when it comes to entertainment, I do it better than most.

“There was no clear indication or anything but he just said ‘I was very happy, that was a great fight.'”

Lobov, usually a featherweight, was competing at 155 lbs on the show and but he didn’t chalk down the unfamiliar weight class as the reason that he lost.

The Russian Hammer @prospectkiller back training at @SBG_Ireland today! Tune into @UltimateFighter on Wednesday 👊 pic.twitter.com/9SxqkXOB3X

— Coach JK (@John_Kavanagh) September 7, 2015

“I don’t believe in weight classes,” Lobov said. “I never have and I never will. If you think about it, that’s what martial arts is all about. It’s about the smaller guy being able to beat a bigger guy. That’s how martial arts started and I believe in that.

“If you think about all your training and all the skill that you have, if that could be overturned by somebody being 5 kg heavier than you then that’s crazy. Why are you doing this if 5 kg can impact you so much?

“I think if you’re the smaller guy then the gameplan is not as straightforward. It’s a little bit harder and you can’t afford to make the mistakes you could if you were a bigger guy but it can be done.

“I even think that I could fight at 170 lbs and win fights. That’s what I truly believe but we’ll see. Time will tell but I certainly want to put that to the test.”

It’s a hard life for a Russian on the run these days! https://t.co/1j8f4Z78Xb pic.twitter.com/CDjEUaQTU3 — Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) June 7, 2015

It would be easy to get disheartened by the fact that he lost his first fight in front of Dana White but Lobov remains hopeful that his fight style and the UFC’s tendency to remain loyal to exciting fighters could mean that a future in the UFC is not the craziest notion.

“The fight doesn’t really go on your record. I already had a bad record but at least it’s not going to make it any worse. I’ve got that and all the UFC want is entertaining guys.

“Look at Leonard Garcia, for example. He’s a guy who lost many, many fights in the UFC but they kept bringing him back just because he would always bring it. He would always put it all on the line, leave everything in the octagon and have the whole crowd screaming. That’s how I feel my fights go. I’m never in a boring fight and I even have grandmas jumping off their seats. Every single person who sees me fight says ‘I want to see that guy fight again,’ and hopefully Dana is going to say the same.”

Ultimate Fighter contestant Artem Lobov attended Setanta Sports advance screening of the first episode in the latest series of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ featuring Conor McGregor. Episode 1 was shown live at 3am Wednesday night on BT Sport 2 and will air at 10pm every Thursday thereafter on Setanta Ireland & BT Sport. The Setanta Sports Pack will also have exclusively live coverage of UFC 194 Aldo v McGregor on December 12th. Visit Setanta.com