John Salter knows he’s got a big challenge in Kendall Grove. But he also knows if he wants to stick to his plan of being Bellator champion by 2018, that’s just the type of opponent he needs.

Salter (13-3 MMA, 3-0 BMMA) meets Grove (23-16 MMA, 4-3 BMMA) at Friday’s Bellator 181 looking to add to a five-fight winning streak that dates back to 2012. Of those wins, three took place in Bellator. None of them went past the second round. In fact, win or lose, Salter has never needed the judges to decide the outcome of a fight in his career.

The key performance of his recent run came last June, when he needed fewer than five minutes to submit Bellator’s former 185-pound titleholder, Brendan Halsey. Salter was the second man to ever beat the ex-champ. The first had been current champ Rafael Carvalho, who captured the promotion’s vacant 185-pound title in the process.

With Halsey as the common denominator between him and Carvalho, who’s since defended his belt twice, Salter believes there’s a case to be made for his own spot atop the division.

“Brendan Halsey had a run through Bellator where nobody was really touching him,” Salter told MMAjunkie ahead of the co-headlining Spike-televised middleweight scrap. “Carvalho caught him with a body kick. I think that was the only thing Carvalho really did to him in that fight. Halsey moved to his back, almost submitted him, beat him up.

“Then I went in there, I ran through Halsey – on the feet, on the ground, everything. So I think that shows I’m right there. I’m ready for that fight.”

After the Bellator 156 meeting with Halsey, Salter went on to add a third win to his spotless promotional record when he dispatched Claudio Annicchiarico in the first-round of their Bellator 168 encounter. Now, with a win over Grove, he expects to add that definitive stamp on the No. 1 contender ticker.

“This is huge,” Salter said. “This is a great opponent, because Kendall is a big name. Kendall’s been tough for a long time. Everybody knows he’s a good fighter, so a win over him means a lot. I want fights that will put me as No. 1 contender in Bellator. I’m not looking for easy fights. I’m looking for the top guys, who’ll put me right there.”

The win over Halsey also meant the end of a 17-month layoff for Salter in the aftermath of an old neck injury. After leaving what, in hindsight, seemed like too little time between a neck surgery in 2014 and his 2015 Bellator debut, Salter started feeling the effects of the hasty recovery in training. So he let his body heal up.

The ensuing back-to-back finishes in a seven-month period sort of speak for themselves. But, in case that’s not proof enough, an injury-free Salter offers some verbal reassurance that those issues are in the past.

“Right now, I’m about as healthy as I’ve ever been going into a fight,” Salter said.

The 32-year-old UFC and Strikeforce vet, who also happens to be a jiu-jitsu black belt and collegiate wrestling champion, is not overlooking Grove’s skillset. Grove, Salter says, is a great grappler. He’s a solid striker. But the major cause for concern when it comes to the fellow UFC vet is quite obvious.

“The biggest strength he has is that he’s 6-foot-6 in a weight class where nobody else is,” Salter said. “So that makes it really tough to fight. Obviously, on the feet, he’s got the reach. I’ve got to work hard to get inside that angle, move around a lot to get inside.

“And then, once we’re on the ground, he can recover from bad positions a lot easier because he’s so tall. (There’s) a lot to worry about there, but I’ve prepared very well for it. Brought in the guys that I needed to prepare for it. And I’m ready to deal with that height.”

Salter, who relocated to Nashville mostly so he could train around partners that resembled Grove’s body type, is careful not to let his thoughts wander too far from the task at hand. After all, he hasn’t gotten this far by looking past his opponents. But, at the same time, he does have some plans for the not-so-distant future.

“I’m hoping before 2018 to have that belt around my waist and defend it as often as possible.”