What’s next for Conor McGregor? That’s been the big burning question from the moment the final bell rung on his superfight with Floyd Mayweather. For a while, it sounded like McGregor wasn’t sure himself. He rattled off a near endless list of possible opponents during a recent interview. But if his close friend and teammate Artem Lobov is correct, next up for McGregor is interim UFC lightweight champ Tony Ferguson.
“Now that that’s [Mayweather vs. McGregor] is over, well now he’s back to defending his belt,” Lobov said in an interview with Karyn Bryant (via FloCombat). “In my eyes, of course he’s going to fight Tony. Why wouldn’t he fight Tony? His belt is on the line. Some guy has this fake belt around his waist. Conor wants to just take that away by all means.”
“So in my eyes, 100% he’s going to fight Tony, who else is he going to fight? Why wouldn’t he fight Tony? Why wouldn’t he defend that belt? That belt means a lot to Conor. He’s dreamed since a very, very long time ago of having that belt. So it’s going to be damn, damn hard to try and take that belt from him. He’s going to be defending that belt for a long time.”
Just to give you an idea of how close Conor and Artem are, McGregor used his position as coach on The Ultimate Fighter to bring Lobov onto the show’s tournament, and even brought him back for a second chance after Lobov lost in the prelims. Lobov served as one of McGregor’s four cornermen in the Mayweather fight, and he’s described as McGregor’s primary sparring partner during MMA camps.
So this isn’t some friend of a friend whispering to the tabloids about what McGregor may do next. Artem knows Conor well, and this is probably the most reliable report of what may come next until Conor himself says something himself.
As for McGregor, he added fuel to the fire that he’d face Ferguson next by tweeting out a photoshopped Grand Theft Auto picture captioned with a single word: “Tony.” That’s hardly confirmation, but he obviously knew what he was doing when he put that up.
