There has been no shortage of tension between welterweight champion, Tyron Woodley, and Conor McGregor; now Conor’s teammates from Straight Blast Gym in Ireland are getting in on the action. Next month’s UFC Nashville headliner Artem Lobov, close friend and training partner of Conor McGregor, recently took to both Twitter and the airwaves to point out how skewed he feels Woodley’s mindset is when it comes to being champion and being promoted.
He’s been moaning and bitching about the UFC not promoting him, but he doesn’t look at the facts, said Lobov in a recent interview with Top Turtle MMA Podcast in response to Woodley’s claims that he has not been properly promoted as a champion.
Lobov then went on to cite examples of the UFC putting Woodley on loaded cards. Some involved Woodley with a big name champion, some involved them stacking cards underneath him.
Look, he was on the card with Conor McGregor in New York, which was the biggest card ever in the UFC,” said Lobov. “In the last main event he was in, again, he’s the main event guy on a pay-per-view card. They put a really nice matchup before his as the co-main: Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson. … that was supposed to be attracting people to the card.
With these facts in hand, Lobov defended the UFC against Woodley’s claims of bias.
They give him every platform that he needs,” said Lobov. “It’s up to him to put on those performances; they can’t fight for him. …The spotlight is on him; they are putting him in the spotlight. What else can they do for him? So all of the complaints that he has they are very unreasonable and they are not based on facts.
Whether the UFC has handled Tyron Woodley 100% correctly is certainly a debate amongst MMA pundits, but one thing is not up for debate – this beef between Woodley and SBG is far from over.
Lobov goes on to campaign for his teammate Gunnar Nelson, on a two fight win streak, to get the next shot at Woodley’s welterweight title. To hear Lobov’s entire interview about his upcoming fight with Cub Swanson, and his tactical breakdown of a potential Conor-Mayweather fight, listen below (interview starts at 18:00).
Author Daniel Vreeland is a co-founder of the Top Turtle Podcast, and a purple belt in Jiu-Jitsu at New England Submission Fighting in Amherst, Massachusetts.
