“Not to come back out of it,” Former TUF 22 runner-up Artem Lobov affirms his big decision of retirement, says he “wasn’t good enough”


“Not to come back out of it,” Former TUF 22 runner-up Artem Lobov affirms his big decision of retirement, says he “wasn’t good enough”

Artem Lobov

Former UFC Featherweight and former BKFC fighter Artem Lobov finally spoke for the first time under media attention after retiring back in August of 2021. This was a hard decision for the SBG Ireland protege and more so, a longtime teammate of UFC megastar Conor McGregor who made his own way into the UFC by becoming the runner-up of season 22 of The Ultimate Fighter.

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Other than a brief stint of ups and downs in the UFC, Lobov also had a run as a bare-knuckle boxer in BKFC- Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship where he fought and won against the likes of Jason Knight and former boxing world champion Paulie Malignaggi. Lobov had a daring career of fighting anyone put in front of him but regardless, he had his reservations about not being able to accomplish the things he went out there to achieve.

Artem Lobov admitted his dreams to have been “crushed” coming into the retirement decision

Conor McGregor with Artem Lobov
Conor McGregor with Artem Lobov

In an interview with Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting on his podcast the MMA Hour, Artem Lobov reinstated his decision to retire and how the mentality came into alignment with the tough decision.

“It was a very big decision for me,” said Lobov “And I feel like I am not gonna be one of those guys that come back in and out of it you know. It was a decision I thought about for a very long time, it was a difficult decision to make for me and I absolutely love fighting, I love the sport, I love this life. When I made the decision now I was like F**k this is it now, all your dreams you know have crushed sort of.”

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“Even when I lost sometimes I was like okay, this is just a minor setback…you’ll get this back, I will train harder, I will go again, I will try again and I will come back and I will achieve the goals that I come out to achieve,” continued Lobov. “So now this time when I retired, I finally had to come to this point where I had to say to myself, you will not achieve those goals, it will not happen to you, you weren’t good enough, you didn’t manage to get where you wanted to get. This is it now for you as a fighter, time to hang it up Artem, bye-bye,” Lobov sadly concluded.

Artem Lobov-Jason Knight
Artem Lobov-Jason Knight

Not all the fighters get to a name where everyone would remember them as the greatest of all time or even a one time champion for the sake of the history books. But all these fighters have a unique story because of which, fortunately, they have a special fan base, Artem Lobov too had that fan base of his own. Lobov may not have had an ideal career but the “Russian Hammer” always went his shield out putting on a show that fans loved to see and fans appreciated him for, how would you as a fan would remember him?

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