Swanson confident – for good reason – he’ll beat Lobov, but there’s a big mistake he could make that Robbie Lawler once made

By Wade Keller, MMATorch editor

Cub Swanson vs. "Korean Zombie" Doo Ho Choi (photo credit TomSzczerbowskizg © USA Today)

There’s criticism that Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night main event features one of the least deserving fighters to ever headline a nationally televised main event for UFC, Artem Lobov. The 30 year old Lobov is 13-12-1 overall, and just 2-2 in UFC, one of which was on The Ultimate Fighter.

Cub Swanson acknowledged that on this week’s UFC Tonight on FS1, but explains why the fight was scheduled and why he feels its worth fighting. “I fought most of the people in the top ten, and the UFC doesn’t like to do rematches unless they’re for title fights,” Swanson said. “There are a lot of guys coming up. He was talking crap and he was talking a lot, so I said sure, let’s do it.”

Swanson said Lobov talked trash, and that was enough for him to take this fight. “I don’t feel like he had the record to be in the UFC,” he said. “There are more deserving people with better records. But he’s here now and he called me out, so I don’t like him.”

Swanson is looking at this fight as a chance to show that he deserves a title fight. “The only way to step backwards is to have a bad performance,” he said. “I’m planning on going out there and having a better performance and proving why I should be considered for the next title fight… Yeah, there’s more to lose for me. But If I show I’m a better fighter, then there’s nothing to worry about. I have to go out there and perform.”

Torch Audio Analyst and Sherdog columnist Todd Martin favors Swanson, but believes Swanson could lose if he makes a mistake that Robbie Lawler made against Pete Spratt back in 2003.

“A lot of people seem to writing off Lobov, including Cub Swanson,” Martin said on this week’s episode of “The Fix with Todd Martin,” a weekly podcast available to PWTorch VIP members. “I do favor Cub. The problem with Artem Lobov is that he’s really one dimensional. He’s a good striker, but he has no ground game, and the people who have beaten him have exploited his ground game over and over again. But Swanson doesn’t tend to exploit people’s ground game. It feels like a favorable style match-up for Lobov, if nothing else.”

He said Swanson being dismissive of Lobov could cost him. He said this fight reminds him of Robbie Lawler vs. Pete Spratt where Lawler was a much better fighter overall, and if Lawler took it to the ground, he would have had a big advantage, but he stood with Spratt and Spratt upset him, landing a kick that led to Robbie suffering and injury and waving off the fight shortly thereafter. He said such a scenario could play out Saturday night if Cub makes a similar mistake and tries to beat Lobov at Lobov’s strength in an attempt to prove a point.

NOW CHECK OUT OUR FULL UFC FIGHT NIGHT PREVIEW:  UFC FIGHT NIGHT PRIMER: Ecochard’s preview of Swanson vs. Lobov, plus Ellenberger, Diego Sanchez, Lauzon, Dodson

CHECK OUT THIS INTERVIEW CLIP : Swanson talks career, previews his fight vs. Lobov

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