Lobov: Nurmagomedov’s popularity in Russia ‘because of McGregor’

Lobov says Nurmagomedov is only popular in Russia because of McGregor.

It would be very hard to say who would be the bigger draw in Russia between Khabib and Conor. I honestly feel that Khabib is as big as he is in Russia because of Conor McGregor. A lot of people in Russian aren’t happy with how Khabib has been behaving with all of his pullouts. This isn’t a very manly thing to do, not showing up for a fight. In Russia, the people have been brought up tough. It used to be the Soviet Union. The thing everybody thinks of when they think about Russia is how tough the people are. When they see a fighter continuously pulling out, that’s something that they really don’t like. Then they look at a guy like Conor who always shows up and does what he says he’s going to do. That really resonates with the Russian public.