Conor McGregor hasn't been spending much time at Straight Blast Gym recently but his long-time training partner, Artem Lobov, is adamant that 'The Notorious' remains an integral part of the team.
McGregor's social media activity has piqued the curiosity of many fans as he has spent the last few months training at a variety gyms in the United States.
The former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion has visited the likes of American Top Team and Bas Rutten's Elite MMA during his stay in the US, leading some to believe that McGregor's time at SBG had come to an end.
Those rumours intensified when his head coach John Kavanagh said in a December interview that he would need to be
convinced to corner McGregor again.
But Lobov, who is one of the longest-serving members of SBG and a close friend of McGregor's, insists that there is nothing to the rumours.
"No, Conor is still with us, we are all still a part of SBG," Lobov said on
BJPENN.COM Radio.
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"The thing is that many of the SBG fighters that have kind of retired now or whatever, they have opened their own SBG gyms. So we all will often train not only at the main SBG but other SBG gyms. For example, Peter Queally opened SBG Naas and that’s a great facility, so Conor and many of us would often train there. There’s SBG D24 with Paddy Holohan; we’ve got many SBGs now so as a result it may seem sometimes that we’re not all there at SBG HQ, but we still are all a part of SBG."
Lobov is currently preparing for his bare-knuckle boxing debut against fellow former UFC fighter Jason Knight.
McGregor, meanwhile, has yet to commit to his next fight but he is free to return to action from April 6 after serving his suspension for his role in the UFC 229 post-fight melee.
After a bout against Donald Cerrone fell apart due to
McGregor's demands for being relegated to co-main event status, the realisation of a trilogy with Nate Diaz is understood to be the most likely next fight for the Irishman.
