Conor McGregor’s teammate Artem Lobov has finally revealed the real reason their feud with Khabib Nurmagomedov began.
Conor and Khabib’s fued has been in the headlines for months after Conor flew to New York in retaliation to an incident with Khabib and Artem where he ended up throwing a dolly at a bus Khabib and his team were on.
Well many have hit out at the Dublin native for the attack, Artem has now explained what really went down.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on his MMA podcast, Artem explained that Khabib and Conor had always got on well and were “respectful to each other” but suddenly he began calling Conor a “chicken” about a year ago.
Artem explained that ‘chicken’ is a very serious insult in Russia, where both Khabib and Artem are from.
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“Chicken means someone in a male prison who gets raped, it’s a very very severe insult, it is one of the most severe insults you can give a man in Russia,” Artem explained.
The fighter went on to explain that he called out Khabib in a Russian interview after he continued to insult Conor.
“I had to respond in a harsh way. I spoke about Khabib pulling out from fights all the time, so how can you call Conor a chicken when he’s never pulled out.
“You called my brother a chicken, what would you do?” he added.
Artem continued that he met Khabib again on multiple occasions and he never cornered him when they were alone, but then in an incident in New York Khabib and 14 others cornered Artem and threatened him.
The fighter admitted that after a video of the confrontation went online, Conor had texted him within minutes, saying he was coming over to defend him.
“I’m on the way, I’m coming over, I don’t give a f***, I don’t care who, what when, I’m coming over,” he wrote to Artem.
Soon after Conor landed, he and his crew headed to the UFC media day where eventually a dolly was thrown at the Khabib’s bus, and Conor was later arrested.
Conor and Khabib’s feud got even more serious in Las Vegas earlier this month when Khabib jumped out of the Octagon at UFC 229 and members of Khabib’s team jumped into the cage and started attacking the Dublin MMA star.
