Artem Lobov Injured, Out of PFL Dubai Clash With Zubair Tukhugov

Artem Lobov has been forced out of his scheduled fight at PFL Dubai this Friday.

Lobov (14-15-1 MMA, 2-5 UFC) was set to face longtime rival Zubair Tukhugov (20-6-1 MMA, 5-3-1 UFC) at the PFL Champions Series event at Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena. The bout would have marked his first MMA appearance since parting ways with the UFC in 2018.

In a video posted to Instagram on Wednesday, “The Russian Hammer” revealed that he had suffered an injury just days before the event, ruling him out of his comeback fight.

“I went training, trying to get accustomed to the fight time, you know?” Lobov said. “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, whereas this time, you know, I was full of power, you know, full of strength. My coach has cleared me to train all this week up until Wednesday, and I wanted to push hard. It's an important fight for me.

“I knew the fight was going to be a lot of grappling, a lot of takedown defense, so we decided to grapple. (We) tried to be safe, didn't start standing up, you know, went from the floor to try and avoid injury and got into it. And we just had an accidental head clash. As soon as that happened, I could see blood everywhere. (I) quickly covered it with a towel, ran upstairs, trying to not let anybody see me.

“As soon as I got to the room, contacted PFL, they got the doctor, but as soon as the doctor came in, he saw the cut. He said, there's no way you can be fighting with that. The cut was very deep, very bad. There was, as he called it there was a flap there it wasn't just a straight line. It's probably due to the fact that I have a lot of scar tissue on my face from my time at the Bare Knuckle and just all the fights I've had over the years.”

Lobov and Tukhugov have been on a collision course since the infamous post-fight brawl at UFC 229 in 2018, when Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov’s lightweight title clash erupted into chaos. The two were originally booked to meet at an event in Canada just three weeks later, but the UFC scrapped the bout due to safety concerns.

Lured out of retirement by the chance to finally settle that rivalry, Lobov admitted he is bitterly disappointed that he won’t get the opportunity to find closure this week.

“I've never ever pulled out of a fight,” he said. “I fought with any kind of injury possible: ligaments, broken hands, fever, antibiotics…you name it. I've always fought, never ever pulled out of the fight. The doctor said ‘no way we cannot fight.’ He cannot clear me to fight. So the fight had to be pulled.”