Artem Lobov Out Of PFL Fight Due To Injury
Artem Lobov is forced to withdraw from his planned PFL contest as a result of an injury in the lead-up to the bout. ‘The Russian Hamer’ was initially slated to return to the cage after several years on the sidelines to clash with long time rival Zubaira Tukhugov.
That fight was initially booked for PFL’s Road to Dubai Champions Series event set for this Friday. Lobov being pulled from one of the most hotly anticipated bouts on this looming offering from PFL was announced by the promotion’s official X account earlier today.
Taking to his personal social media to give the backstory on how all of this came to be, Lobov said [via Cageside Press],
“Hello everyone. So what happened last night I went training trying to get accustomed to the fight time. So I went pretty late. This week I’ve been feeling excellent, there’s no weight cut for me, so normally I’d be pretty drained. This time I’m full of power, full of strength, my coaches cleared me to train all this week up until Wednesday. I wanted to push hard. It’s an important fight for me.”
“We decided to grapple, tried to be safe, didn’t start standing up. From the floor to try and avoid injury. I got into it. I wanted to give it a hard push. It was going really good. We just had an accidental head clash. Soon as that happened I could see blood everywhere. Soon as I got back to the room I contacted PFL. Soon as the doctor came in, he saw the cut, he said there’s no way you can fight with that.”
Artem Lobov and what the Zubaira Tukhugov bout was tied to
Artem Lobov and Zubaira Tukhugov have a long lasting bad blood that is tied to the rivalry between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov with both fighters, at the time, representing those two factions, respectively.
Alas, the catchweight contest was not meant to transpire this week but perhaps the promotion will aim to re-book the long awaited throwdown for a future offering in the PFL Smart Cage.
