Conor McGregor’s former friend, Artem Lobov, has exposed text messages between him and the UFC superstar as their court case rumbles on.

Lobov claims to be the original co-founder of Proper No. 12 and is suing his long-time training partner to get what he believes he is owed.

Earlier this month, it was revealed in court that McGregor admitted to offering ‘The Russian Hammer’ £790,000 [$1million] for assisting in the establishment of the popular Irish whiskey brand. However, Lobov believes he is due a 5% stake in the deal that saw McGregor and two other stakeholders sell the business to.

On Friday, the retired fighter turned to social media to disclose a text message exchange from August 2017 that he thinks demonstrates a verbal agreement for him to obtain an ownership stake was in place.

“I have full trust in the Irish legal system and look forward to clearing my name in the High Court,” Lobov captioned the tweet, which was watched by over 1.4 million people.
“I’ve been Conor’s most devoted friend, never taking money from my brother for camps because we helped each other achieve our goals!” It has been an honor to assist him in building his largest business!”
“I’m going to look after you in this fight and this whiskey deal!” You are always available to me.

Lobov replied: “The whiskey is going to be huge! [McGregor’s manager] Audie [Attar] told me that you are giving me a percentage, thank you very much for that. It’s going to be a massive success!”

A follow-up incoming text read: “Don’t worry ‘bout it my brother!”

“A few people know, but this was actually my idea. I was the person who came up with the idea to do a whiskey for Conor.

“I went to Conor, and I said, ‘Conor, I have the deal ready for you. This is going to be a billion-dollar deal, no messing here.’

“I’m not sure if he took me seriously or not at the time with the billion dollars.

“We continued working on it and as you can see it was a massive success. I’m really happy to see that and I’m really happy to be a part of it.”