Artem Lobov suing former best friend Conor McGregor – but what is behind the scandal?
McGregor and Lobov were once close teammates, but no longer. © David Fitzgerald / Sportsfile via Getty Images
The lawsuit recently launched by Artem Lobov against Conor McGregor has drawn a line through a decade-long friendship which has been a feature of McGregor’s rise to superstardom in mixed martial arts.
So what exactly started the civil war currently raging in Irish MMA?
Who is Artem Lobov?
Known to some as ‘The Russian Hammer’, Artem Lobov was born 36 years ago in Nizhny Novgorod.
Facing hardship, his family decided to emigrate, first to Argentina and then to Ireland – a decision facilitated by the country’s roaring ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy at the time.
After arriving in Ireland as a 16-year-old and living in numerous areas of the country from Tralee to Letterkenny, Lobov would ultimately settle in the Irish capital Dublin, which he still calls home to this day.
A diligent student, he would win a place in the prestigious Dublin City University, and it was there that he saw an advertisement offering self-defense classes.
He soon found himself being strangled on the mats at John Kavanagh’s SBG Ireland gym; training in the morning before working a full shift in a bank and then training again afterwards.
Lobov and McGregor honed their MMA skills alongside each other. © Instagram / Artem Lobov
Soon, dreams of a career in finance would fade and were replaced by black eyes and swollen lips – but perhaps more crucially – a front-and-center seat to the growth of mixed martial arts in Ireland.
Much of that growth would soon fall upon the shoulders of McGregor – a man two years Lobov’s junior whom he would meet in his gym.
What did Lobov achieve in his career?
While his fight career intersected that of his famous training partner, Artem Lobov didn’t come close to hitting the same heights as Conor McGregor.
On the regional scene in Ireland and the UK, Lobov garnered a reputation as a tough brawler who would take fights on short notice with almost anyone – a stance reflected by a career record which would ultimately read 15 defeats and 13 wins.
He did reach the finals of a season of the UFC’s reality series ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ where he was easily defeated by Ryan Hall, as well as finding a measure of success in his post-UFC career in bare knuckle boxing.
But Lobov’s fight career will be more remembered for the grit and determination he displayed, rather than for being an elite competitor.
What is he most famous for?
Lobov’s finest prizefighting accolade is likely the win secured against former boxing world champion Paulie Malignaggi in a bare-knuckle bout in 2019.
He is perhaps more infamously remembered as being the impetus for the fractious feud between McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
McGregor flew into a rage after seeing video footage of Nurmagomedov and his entourage apparently intimidating Lobov in a hotel ahead of a fight in New York.
McGregor subsequently boarded a jet in his native Dublin to confront Nurmagomedov, leading to the infamous Brooklyn bus debacle and the opening salvo in what would go down as the most heated rivalry in MMA history.
Lobov has also reached notable fame in his homeland of Russia and in 2017 was invited to the Kremlin to help train special forces officers.
What is Lobov’s relationship with Conor McGregor?
At first Lobov was just another face in SBG Ireland. Those faces would come and go, many of them wearing the battle scars of having spent time in the immediate company of the facility’s clear rising star, Conor McGregor.
McGregor and Lobov forged a mutual respect inside the gym. © Brandon Magnus / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
The brash Dubliner came into the gym with a boxing background far more advanced than his peers, but also a keen understanding of how to correctly apply it to mixed martial arts.
He would also develop a reputation as being someone who it was not in your best interests to spar with – not that he was deliberately trying to hurt people, but more that he was so quick and powerful that no one could keep up with him.
Lobov was no different. But he kept coming back. Again and again. And it was in these sessions that a years-long friendship was forged. And per McGregor, his respect for Lobov soared when the Russian scored with a winging hook in one of these gym wars which caught him flush and knocked a chip out of one of McGregor’s teeth.
After that, their friendship blossomed, and the pair were always on hand to help each other prepare for their fights.
Why has Lobov fallen out with McGregor?
This is where the tale turns sour. Lobov has claimed in recent interviews that he was central to the genesis of McGregor’s Proper No. Twelve brand of Irish whiskey, and even more recently that he is owed a 5% stake of the $600 million made by McGregor and his business associates when it was sold to Proximo Spirits in 2021.
Lobov also said that he turned down an offer of $1 million from McGregor for his initial work in assisting in the establishment of the brand (later denied by McGregor).
But what appeared to have been a legal disagreement spilled over into social media when it emerged that Lobov was taking legal action against McGregor to force him to part with the 5% stake he claims he is owed.
Lobov has taken the matter to the Irish High Court and a ruling is expected sometime next year.
McGregor, as is his wont, responded furiously online, branding Lobov a ‘rat’, a ‘turncoat’ and, more bizarrely, an ‘uncooked sausage’ in retaliation – which led to a further claim by Lobov of defamation by McGregor, which was thrown out of an Irish court on Friday.
How has the situation developed in recent days?
Since the news of Lobov’s lawsuit has become public, McGregor has unleashed a vicious sequence of social media messages against his (now former) friend.
In addition to the rather curious insults listed above (which were described by a judge as merely ‘trash talk’), McGregor had also posted a voice message to Twitter in which he invited Lobov to fight him inside the confines of SBG Ireland, with the winner either getting or keeping the 5% fee, which amounts to somewhere in the region of $30 million.
Conor McGregor brands Russian teammate a ‘rat’
Lobov, as his lawyers would have no doubt counselled him, did not take McGregor up on his request, preferring instead to let the Irish legal system lead the fight.
McGregor, though, has made clear that any relationship the pair might have had in the past is now well and truly null and void.
What happens next?
For now, nothing. The case will be heard in the Irish High Court in 2023, much to the glee of sportswriters the world over, after which a judge will determine if Lobov is due some proceeds from the whiskey sale, or if McGregor is correct in his stance that Lobov’s input was negligible.
As is common in cases such as this, the loser will likely be liable to pay the winner’s legal fees – something which would be the worst-case scenario for Lobov after apparent scorched-earth and burned-bridges approach to what he feels he is owed.
As for McGregor, his thumbs will likely keep doing the talking on Twitter after a judge ruled that his insults towards Lobov on social media do not constitute defamation, and he has already signaled that this isn’t something that can be settled out of court (unless, presumably, it was in a cage).
But more than that, what happens next is that the two former close friends endure the crumbling of a relationship which has been one of the truest bromances ever seen in mixed martial arts.
And for all their posturing and legal claims, one imagines that neither man wanted to end up here.
