Artem Lobov is back in action at UFC Fight Night Moncton, facing Michael Johnson in the co-main event of the evening.
One of the biggest feuds in all of MMA is between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, but Lobov insists the feud was started because Nurmagomedov called McGregor a “chicken.”
“It might not sound very serious to you guys, but just so you know, ‘chicken’ is one of the biggest insults you can give a man in Russia,” said Lobov on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show. “In fact, if you call someone a chicken in Russia, that is a person that gets raped in prison – in male prison. That’s what a chicken is in Russia. And Khabib knows that, and everybody knows that. It is a very, very, severe insult.”
The feud between the two would boil over at UFC 229, but it was a post-fight brawl between a gaggle of people that may be remembered most by many.
Zubaiar Tukhugov was supposed to fight Lobov this Saturday Night before his role in the post-fight brawl cost the Russian competitor that bout. Lobov, a teammate of McGregor, says that if the UFC decides to cut Tukhugov, it would force him to leave the promotion as well.
"If they cut him, I want to be gone as well," Lobov said. "I will fight him in ACB, Bellator or any league he wants to do it. But I will get him. It has to be done inside the Octagon. I want to look this man in the eyes, one-on-one. Once you're inside that Octagon, it's one-on-one. Your skill versus his skill. Your heart versus his heart. I want to test his heart in the Octagon. I want to see what he's got."
UFC Fight Night Moncton takes place on Saturday, October 27 from the Moncton Events Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada with Volkan Oezdemir and Anthony Smith headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on Fox Sports 1.
