Artem Lobov Blasts Cub Swanson: He’s Wild, I’ll Put Him Away Early

Artem Lobov is extremely confident, to say the least, as he heads into his fight against No. 4-ranked Cub Swanson tomorrow (Sat. April 21, 2017) night in Nashville.

Lobov is on a two-fight win streak after back-to-back losses in his promotional debut, and after an impressive win over Teruto Ishihara this past November, he’s taking a massive jump up in competition when he takes on ‘Killer Cub.’ Swanson is on a three-fight win streak and comes off of a Fight Of The Year candidate against Doo Ho Choi at UFC 206 this past December.

During a recent interview with MMA Junkie Lobov revealed that he could have taken it slow and chosen a lesser ranked opponent to share the Octagon with next, but instead opted to ‘risk it all’ against Swanson:

“I wanted to risk it all, because if you never risk, you never drink champagne,” Lobov said.

Lobov’s close relationship as a training partner and friend to UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor has showered the Russian with both an abundance of love and hate. He’s been under a lot of scrutiny since his bout with Swanson was announced, as many don’t believe he deserves the bout quite yet, but ‘The Russian Hammer’ is looking to prove those doubters wrong:

“There’s nothing more motivating than having the doubters there, and there’s nothing sweeter than shoving it straight in their face,” he said.

In Swanson’s last fight against Choi he was caught quite a bit in the slug-fest, which Lobov said isn’t going to fly when he meets the 145-pound veteran in the ultimate proving ground:

“He’s so wild, I can see myself catching him early,” Lobov said. “He gets hit in every fight. The last fight, it was a great fight, but he got hit a lot. And when you get hit by me, I just hope they’re able to wake him back up.”

“The way I see it, when it’s all said and done, there’s going to be a mountain of corpses behind me, and gold around my waist.”