Josh Emmett went from an unranked prospect to the No. 5 featherweight in UFC with his devastating first-round upset over Ricardo Lamas at UFC on FOX 26.

Emmett, serving as a late replacement for Jose Aldo, knocked out Lamas with a hellacious left hook just four minutes into UFC on FOX 26’s co-main event. The win instantly rocketed Emmett into the top five of the UFC’s media-generated featherweight rankings, and now the 32-year-old Team Alpha Male product has his sights set on taking one more step closer toward UFC gold.

“I want to be a world champion like I said, so if something was presented to me like a title shot, like I said, I’ll take that in a heartbeat,” Emmett said on The MMA Hour after UFC on FOX 26. “But I know (Frankie) Edgar and (Max) Holloway, they’re in talks about fighting. I think Edgar has definitely earned it, so what makes the most sense to me is maybe if Brian Ortega and I fight. The winner of us gets the winner of Edgar-Holloway.”

In a strange twist of fate, it was Edgar and Holloway who were directly responsible for Emmett’s opportunity to fight Lamas at UFC on FOX 26. Edgar was forced to pull out of his Dec. 2 title contest against Holloway after suffering a fractured bone in his face, which led Aldo to be tapped as a replacement. That left Lamas without an opponent for Dec. 16, and Emmett gladly stepped up to accept the challenge.

Emmett ultimately missed weight against Lamas, which put a significant damper on a performance that was otherwise the best of his career. But UFC on FOX 26 still served as a shining moment of validation for Emmett that he belonged, and it’s a moment Emmett always believed would come, even if the road to get there was longer and more winding than he ever expected.

“This is the longest I’ve gone without a finish, so I knew I was overdue for one and I kept saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to get one on Saturday,’” Emmett said. “I wanted to go in there and I wanted to do what the current and former champion couldn’t do Lamas, and I did it in the first round. I just, I know where I stack up. I’ve been with Team Alpha Male for over a decade and I know I’m one of the best fighters in the world. Urijah (Faber) told me that when I was 2-0 as a pro.

“He said, ‘You’re one of the best fighters in the world, just nobody know it yet.’ And I took the hard road, so much adversity, so many injuries, and I fought time and time, ‘Should I keep doing this? Should I keep pursuing it?’ But my goal was always to get in the UFC, and then once I got here, I’m not going to stop until I’m a world champion.”

Not only did Emmett upset Lamas, but he did so in stunning fashion, scoring a walk-off, one-punch knockout that will be replayed on UFC highlight reels until the end of time. The stoppage was so decisive that Emmett declined to follow up with additional punches on the ground, and Lamas stayed down on the canvas for several minutes, making for an extremely scary sight.

“Just the way I hit him, I just, I don’t know — in sparring, sometimes you land the cleanest punch and you just know. And so I felt that through my left hand and I literally saw him just fall back and his head bounce off the ground, and I was just like, ‘That’s it,’” Emmett said. “I celebrated, of course, and then when I looked back and he was still out, I don’t know, that’s kinda hard to watch. I can’t celebrate anymore.

“I had to take a knee and just hope he’s okay, because I know his wife and his family and his dad were there, and I can imagine what they’re going through, if my wife or my mom or something like that happened to me. I don’t wish that upon anyone, even my opponents. Like, I always hope I go in there, I get the win, a knockout like that, but we both go home safe, no injuries for our families and friends.”

Moving forward, Emmett appears to be in line for big things in 2018.

The California native was in attendance at UFC Fresno earlier this month to witness firsthand as another young gun in the featherweight division, Ortega, staked his claim for contendership with a submission victory over Cub Swanson. With Holloway and Edgar likely busy with each other in early 2018, Emmett believes a top contender fight between he and Ortega is exactly what the 145-pound class could be looking for.

“This is my time, and this is what I’ve been wanting for so long, and I knew it would come eventually,” Emmett said. “I just had to keep chipping away and grinding at this, what I’ve been chasing. And it’s here, and that’s why I seized the opportunity. I pounced on the opportunity to fight Lamas, and I just can’t wait to see what 2018 holds for me.”