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After being released from the UFC at the beginning of this year, Artem Lobov feels he is a lot better off financially fighting for BKFC.
Former UFC featherweight Artem Lobov has said he is happy with the position he is in for Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship after being released from the UFC in January of this year.
Lobov (13-15-1, 1NC) was signed to the UFC after competing on The Ultimate Fighter season 22. Starting with consecutive decision losses, Lobov picked up the only wins of his UFC career against Chris Avila and Teruto Ishihara in 2016. He ended his UFC run with three consecutive decision losses against Cub Swanson, Andre Fili and Michael Johnson.
Talking recently to MMA Fighting, Lobov explained why although he is very thankful to the UFC for making his name, he feels financially he is in a much better place since leaving the UFC and making the switch to bare-knuckle boxing.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for UFC. The reason why I’m getting all these offers is in large part because I was a UFC fighter and that’s where I made my name,” Lobov explained. “Having said that, of course everybody wants to be champion, yes that’s good to be in the UFC but the thing is we all have families, we all have mouths to feed and we all need to provide. I’m able to do it a lot better outside the UFC than when I was in the UFC.
“I watch the pay disclosures after every card in the UFC and normally there’s one guy on the card who gets paid more than me. If there’s a big, huge card maybe there’s three or four. So I get paid more than 90 or 95 percent of the UFC fighters so I’m happy I’m in the position that I’m in.”
Lobov has fought twice for BKFC so far in 2019, winning a bloody decision against Jason Knight in April and another decision against former boxing world champion Paulie Malignaggi in June. “The Russian Hammer” is now preparing for a rematch against Knight at BKFC 6 this weekend, and Lobov wants a stoppage win against his fellow former UFC opponent.
“To me, I think this time I really want to make it clear. I want to stop him,” Lobov said. “I feel I can. I dropped him a few times in that fight. I feel I was maybe a little too reckless and I blew my load a bit too soon. That was also my first bare-knuckle fight. I didn’t really know what to expect.”