LAS VEGAS – Khabib Nurmagomedov says he has dreamed of winning a UFC title for as long as he can remember. Truthfully, he might be stretching it a bit.

Oh, the guy is a fighter to the core, and owns a list of skills and finishing moves the length of Shaq’s right arm.

He’s a guy who wrestled a bear, after all.

But it’s hard to imagine when 9-year-old Nurmagomedov was rolling with a bear that he thought one day he might wind up with the UFC lightweight title belt around his waist.

For however long he’s harbored his dream, though, he’s closer than ever to accomplishing it. He’ll meet Tony Ferguson for the interim belt on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in the co-main event of UFC 209 in one of the best bouts – on paper – the UFC can make.

And even if it’s just a reasonable facsimile of a title belt – Conor McGregor is the one and only UFC lightweight champion at this point – it’s a sensational bout that puts Nurmagomedov in position for where he wants to be with a win.

Go down the list and look at fights that are realistically able to be made, and ask yourself which, if any, of those promise to be more suspenseful, evenly matched and action-packed than Nurmagomedov-Ferguson.

It’s a matter of taste and style preference, to be sure, but there’s little dispute that Nurmagomedov-Ferguson will be a sensational bout.

Both guys are on the verge of stardom, and Nurmagomedov is the one who wasn’t so easy to see coming.

He joined the UFC in 2012 with a 16-0 record and 12 finishes. Despite a Dominick Cruz-like flurry of injuries, Nurmagomedov is 8-0 in the UFC with four finishes and giving every indication he’s no fluke.

He’ll get his chance to prove that against Ferguson, whose long history of success in the UFC proves his legitimacy. Ferguson is 22-3 but has won nine in a row since losing to Michael Johnson on May 5, 2012, a fight in which he broke his arm in the first round but went the entire way.

Before the loss to Johnson, Ferguson had been on a six-fight winning streak, so he enters having won 15 of his past 16 and a reasonable explanation for the only defeat.

If Nurmagomedov beats that guy, who has won fight of the night in his past three outings and has a combined six bonuses over his past five bouts, it’s going to be a statement of the highest order.

“It’s only a couple of days until I have everything I wanted,” Nurmagomedov told Yahoo Sports.

Becoming a major star in the UFC – a fighter who sells tickets and pay-per-views – is difficult even for the best of fighters. Some of those who made it to the top in recent years, such as Brock Lesnar, McGregor and Ronda Rousey, were easy to see coming.

Lesnar had the massive body and the huge name recognition from his stint in the WWE. Because of his pro wrestling background, he was great in interviews and was able to generate heat around his bouts like few others. But he was doubly intriguing because he had a great pedigree in amateur wrestling.

Rousey had remarkable judo skills that enabled her to finish fights in record-breaking times and was genius with the media. McGregor had to prove his talent was enough to win at the top level, but it was clear when he joined the UFC that he knew his way around a promo.

But Nurmagomedov wasn’t so easy to see, even though his talent was immediately obvious.

He’s developing into quite the trash talker who is brash enough to make half the audience love him and the other half hate him. He’s eager to fight anyone and crazy enough that he might just consider a match with a full-sized, hungry grizzly if he were paid enough.

During a conference call in which he and Ferguson spent half of their time calling each other chicken and promising doom for the other, Ferguson noted that he may cut Nurmagomedov up.

“Hey dude, you try to take me down, you’re going to find out exactly how sharp my elbows are,” Ferguson said.

That seemed to set off Nurmagomedov, who during an interview with Yahoo Sports repeatedly talked about his striking.

“My striking is good; my striking defense is good,” Nurmagomedov said. “All my career, I’ve only eaten a couple of shots. People underestimate my striking because I dominate on the ground. I do so much damage and so much good work on the ground that they don’t see my striking. Believe me when I tell you, my striking is better than anyone thinks.”

He took his share of shots against Johnson in New York in November, but those blows are long forgotten in favor of the memory of Nurmagomedov on top of Johnson and talking to him, telling him to quit because he was going to beat him so badly.

Not long after, he did just that to an outstanding fighter in his own right, sending a message to the rest of the division.

And if he defeats Ferguson to claim the interim title, buckle up for what figures to be several months of nonstop insults between Nurmagomedov and McGregor.

That buildup will be epic. But he’s bound and determined not to lose sight of the most important thing, which is that he’ll never get near McGregor if he doesn’t first dispose of Ferguson.

“I don’t need to talk about Conor now,” Nurmagomedov said. “Everyone knows what [McGregor] is about. I’ll see him soon enough, though, and then you can see if you believe me or not.”

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