Best case, he is a outside of the top15 FW journeyman.
Would not be in the ufc if it was not for his loyalty to Conor.
Wiki also lists his nicknames as:I don't know why but I love Artem. He gets a lot of abuse for being a Conor yes man, and people say he doesn't belong in the UFC (2-3 isn't that bad).
(I want to interject that wikipedia currently has his loss to Cub Swanson as by way of "Lord Lobov Was Merciful" haha)
I think the only thing you can point to is the TUF loss where he was brought back. He was well known enough in the European scene to warrant a TUF call up, and after other guys from his gym did a good job it's not exactly unheard of. After that he performed brilliantly on TUF,and since then has a 2-3 record and one of those losses is a close fight with Cub Swanson. I don't think he'd have been cut off of that.
He's definitely outside the top 15, although the term "journeyman" doesn't exist in MMA as no one outside of Bob Sapp is brought into a fight with the sole intention of losing. There are what? Like 30 UFC FWs? What's up with being outside the top 15?
Yeah that was cringy.
He's got terrible gyno also something fishy is going on at sbg
That camera angle makes him look like he has normal length arms. Good for him.
I'll give him a pass seeing as conor is his mentorwow, I love russians who pretend to be fluent english speakers..
Arte definitely looks like a guy that can bang all night long....and hardchu chu motherfuckers...
Holy shit man that was funny lolAnd what you would have preferred him to do is immediately tap out and then perhaps ask if Cub Swanson would allow him to suck his dick?
He's a FW fighter who was given a big step up in the FW division after a win. Why wouldn't he take it and try for the KO? He gave it a pretty solid shot too.
Arte definitely looks like a guy that can bang all night long....and hard
I think his friendship with Conor also led to him getting pretty favorable fights too. I don't hink he would have a 2-3 record if it was the chance that decided his opponent?
Chris Avila who also was one of his opponenets was also a fighter who got his ufc ticket through contacts/loyalty, but he is cut after 0-2 in the uFC.
And Teruto Ishihara is fairly close to being cut in case of another loss.
I think he'll lose this weekend, and with his own honrable principle asks to be released from his contract?