It has been the better part of a decade since Artem Lobov and Zubaira Tukhugov were at the center of an altercation in Brooklyn, New York that would spark chaos at UFC 229 months later.
An infamous time in the world of mixed martial arts, the Khabib-McGregor rivalry was sparked when Nurmagomedov and his team, including Tukhugov, corned Lobov during the UFC 223 Fight Week in April 2018, slapping the SBG Ireland fighter several times following trash talk online and in the media.
Though the pair have since had a very public falling out, Lobov at the time was a close friend and training partner of McGregor. The incident led to McGregor and his team attacking a bus in the Barclay’s Center parking garage on April 5, two days prior to the PPV card, shattering a window and injuring Michael Chiesa (who was cut) and Ray Borg (who had glass shards in his eye), both of whom were innocent bystanders caught up in the turmoil.
Lobov and Tukhugov were later booked to fight that October, but after Nurmagomedov sparked a melee at UFC 229 attacking McGregor’s corner after submitting the Irish star, Zubaira entered the fray and found himself suspended. Now, all these years later, the pair will finally throw down for a different promotion, part of the PFL Champions Series 3 card in Dubai next month.
“We have to finally finish this off. There’s no point doing the talking, let’s do the fighting,” Lobov said during a recent media session with Cageside Press on hand. “We’re fighters. We’ve seen them approach me with ten guys, so let’s now see how it goes one-on-one.”
Tukhugov, in that same face-off media session, agreed that the fight had been “a long time coming. It’s a very promising fight for public, for audience, for both of us. We have a little thing to settle, so I think it’s going to be exciting for everybody involved.”
Dagestan’s Tukhugov, however, appears to have moved on from the rivalry that the PFL is no doubt banking on to draw eyeballs. “I wouldn’t say we’re still the same level of bad blood right now. It’s been six years. I kind of already let it pass. If I had bad feelings, we definitely would have solved that within six years. So right now, it’s all pure sport.”
The same sentiments were not on display by Artem Lobov, who appears eager to settle an old score in the cage. “For me, how can it be over if we didn’t get a chance to actually fight? Obviously there was a lot of things said, a lot of things happened, but I feel the story wasn’t over yet. We spoke a lot about it, and we have to finish it with a fight. That’s what we do, we’re fighters. Words don’t mean as much as actions, so we have to get in there and fight,” Lobov told Cageside Press. “For sure to me I feel the story’s not over until we go into that cage and put the fight on. Then we get to see what’s what.”
“We’ve seen a lot of action from Zubaira when he was talking to me, telling me to say it to his own face when there was ten guys there,” Lobov, who has not competed in several years, added. “Well now, it’s going to be one-on-one, and I’ll finally get a chance to say it to his face. And he can say whatever he wants to my face too, and we’ll finally get to close that chapter. The right way; that’s the way it should be done.”
“This is too big of a story not to have a fight at the end.”
Lobov hasn’t fought in MMA since 2018, and it was 2021 that last time he knuckled up for BKFC. Tukhugov has been on the sidelines as well in recent years.
“Yes indeed. It’s been three years since I was fighting last, but I have a great camp right now,” stated Zubaira. “It’s not any worse, not any better than before. I’m back on track, we have a full camp right now and I’m looking forward to it.”
Lobov, meanwhile, called getting back to training for a live fight “interesting,” though he added that “to be honest with you I’ve enjoyed the time off. I felt I needed it. As you know, towards the end of my career I was doing bare-knuckle. Very intense sport, very demanding on the body, and mentally as well. You get into a blender, fists are flying, blood everywhere, it’s a difficult sport.”
And so Lobov was simply done with MMA and fighting, at least for a time. “I really, really needed the break, but after a while, fighting’s something that’s in my blood. I love fighting.” You can see that from how his fights go, Lobov added. “Once I got a little break, I started feeling those feelings again. The adrenaline, wanting to feel that adrenaline again. And obviously this was a big fight that I had to have. We just absolutely had to put this fight together, had to tick that box off.”
Watch the full PFL Champions Series face-off interview with Artem Lobov and Zubaira Tukhugov above.
