Surging Kiwi MMA prospect Jay-Jay Wilson will be front and centre when Bellator resumes its 2020 schedule this month.
'The Maori Kid' will square off with Tywin Claxton at Bellator 242 in Connecticut on July 25, the promotion's first event since February.
The undefeated Brazilian jiu-jitsu phenom will be looking to add another victim to his rapidly-growing highlight reel, having finished his last four fights with North America's second-largest MMA organisation.
His streak has already caught the attention of his featherweight colleagues, and adding another limb to his rapidly-growing collection would undoubtedly push Wilson to the brink of the division's elite tier.
"It's nice to get recognition for your hard work,"Wilson tells Newshub.
"You know it's working when people give you props for it. It makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing."
His employer's clearly see that potential, having promoted Wilson to the near the top of a star-studded card, which also includes the debut of ex-UFC dynamo Sergio Pettis and highly-touted fellow featherweight Aaron Pico.
"It's a stacked card, so there's going to be a lot of eyes on this fight," Wilson says.
"With everything that's going on right now, they want to create exciting match-ups. There's not much sport going on so it's going to have a lot of attention.
"But I'm just thinking about my opponent. I don't get caught up in that. I just think 'okay, there's a guy in front of me and he's going to try to kill me, so I have to try to kill him first."
Getting the better of a fighter of Claxton's profile will certainly help that cause. The 27-year-old former All American wrestler has six wins in his past seven fights, with a penchant for a spectacular finish himself.
"He's a tough opponent. He's super-explosive, a really good wrestler. He's going to be a tricky out.
"I want to wear him out. I want to take him down and take away that ability and then once I do that, the second half is where I'm going to start to shine."
At 22-years-old, Wilson is still in the infancy of his professional fighting career. But the former BJJ world champion is already supremely confident that he's unrivalled in the ground aspect of MMA, and it's naturally where he wants to drag any contest he's involved in.
"I've been saying that since I got into Bellator," Wilson says. "In my division, there's no one with my level of jiu-jitsu."
"I'll be looking for a stoppage in the second round or even the end of the first round."
Living in San Diego where he trains out of Alliance MMA, Wilson escaped New Zealand just days before Level 4 lockdown hit, having returned for a holiday to show his American partner the country and share some of his cultural heritage.
But with his gym closed for obvious reasons, Wilson was forced to hunker down with a tight-knit crew of coaches and training partners for this fight camp, where they were kept on tenterhooks as the status of the event flicked between green and red light.
"We were just in my friend's garage. There were five of us, we didn't really go out, we didn't socialise with anyone else. We kept it just between us to prevent any infection."
The Oliver MMA-product has become accustomed with quick nights in the office, having been pushed past the opening round just once in his young pro tenure to date.
But this time around, Wilson insists he'll be taking a more measured approach against the hard-hitting Claxton.
"He's a wrestler but we're going to try and take him down and we're going to find some holes on the mat. I'm going to be taking my time in this fight. I'm not going to be in a rush.
"He's explosive in the first round so we're adjusting and we've figured out a game plan on how to break him and we're going to do it."
