Tony Ferguson is hoping Dustin Poirier leaves Abu Dhabi as the undisputed UFC lightweight champion and stops Khabib Nurmagomedov in the process.

Nurmagomedov will look to defend his title in the main event of UFC 242 when he scraps the aforementioned Poirier. It will no doubt be an interesting fight where the winner is likely to be fighting Tony Ferguson next. And, if ‘El Cucuy’ has his way, that fight would be against the current interim lightweight champion.

“Hopefully Dustin [Poirier] gets a piece of him, throws him on his back, and puts him away, so we can have a good ole’ f*****g American battle, battle royale,” Tony Ferguson said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show. “Like I said, if push comes to shove me and Khabib, we’ll go out there and we’ll handle this s**t, in December. So either Dustin or Khabib, title shot next December, Las Vegas, let’s make it happen UFC brass.”

But, as Ferguson says, he would be fine if it is Nurmagomedov who wins the bout. Why he wants it to be Poirier is simple. He wants to fight another American and fight someone out of American Top Team which he says is one of the best gyms in the world.

“Hey man, he’s American, he’s cool, he’s out of [American] Top Team, one of the gyms I wanted to go and train at, I haven’t had the opportunity to. I fought a couple of people out of there. Solid team man. They got a good bunch of people there man. Champions.”

There is no question Tony Ferguson’s next fight should be for the lightweight title. Both Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier said there is no one else to fight but him. And, if his prediction is right, he suspects he will be fighting “The Diamond” for the undisputed belt later this year.

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This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 9/2/2019.