Since its founding in 1993, a diverse mix of men and women have laid claim to belts as the best of the best in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Saturday night in the co-main event of UFC 209 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, 28-year-old Dagestani mixed martial artist Khabib Nurmagomedov seeks to become the first Muslim to join the list.

Boasting a 24-0 record built over the course of a nine-year career, ‘The Eagle’, as he likes to be called, brings a particularly hard and damaging grappling style into the Octagon that was hammered into him since he could walk the rugged terrain on which generations of North Caucasian men have been instructed to battle.

These are the people and places Nurmagomedov conjures as he prepares to fight.

“I feel I represent my country. Not only my country, but all former USSR countries, because I have very big fanbase here and I have more than a billion Muslim fans,” Nurmagomedov told the Guardian. “I feel I represent these guys all around the world. My fans. This gives me very good energy. When I go to the cage I think about these people.”

More and more, they think about him.

Few fighters in the MMA have cultivated a relationship with fans the way Nurmagomedov has. The unbeaten contender boasts 1.9 million followers on Instagram, and has drawn large crowds of Russian and Muslim supporters. The UFC has attempted to make in-roads to promoting events in Russia, and Nurmagomedov is a major reason why.

Upon his return to Makhachkala, Dagestan, after dominating Michael Johnson in November, hundreds of fans greeted him at the airport. If he manages to become the 71st fighter in UFC history to win a belt, the reception is likely to bloom well beyond that. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, Nurmagomedov, who speaks English with an entertaining flair, has shown an ability to connect with people, whether or not they identify with him on cultural, ethnic or religious grounds.

Drawing upon his heritage and faith, the UFC’s first Muslim star is on the verge of realizing the greatness that was set out for him in his earliest days. Like his father, Abdulmanap, Khabib began wrestling, as most Dagestani boys do, near the age of eight. Abdulmanap excelled at judo and combat sambo, a form of martial art linked to the Russian military, and went on to counsel many Dagestani children in the ways of self-defense and fitness – as much a rite of passage as a simple competitive exercise. At the top of the class, of course, was Khabib. From the outset of his training Khabib displayed natural gifts, and his father sought to push these traits to their limit.

Famously, a video surfaced in 2015 that showed Kabib, nine at the time, successfully wrestling a bear cub to the delight of Abdulmanap, an esteemed wrestling coach under the old USSR sports program. The son never stopped going after the cub, such was his desire to please his father. That sensibility has only grown stronger over the years, leading him to the stiffest test of his professional MMA career this weekend against American dynamo Tony “El Cucuy” Ferguson (22-3).

“I think when I win this fight that my skill will be better than his skill,” Nurmagomedov said of Ferguson, a wild and rangy challenger who could easily present problems. “He is unpredictable. He has good knees, good elbows. I think my game is much better than his game. Most important, I have my heart – which is more big than his head. I think that’s why I’m going to win this fight.”

Five years ago, Nurmagomedov sought to perfect his skills away from Dagestan, where proper sparring partners became sparse while distractions mounted as his profile expanded, so he joined trainer Javier Mendez and the assortment of top-tier fighters and wrestlers toiling daily at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California. Nurmagomedov said he took to San Jose, and remains comfortable being a devout Muslim in the US, at a moment in time when others in his position might not feel the same.

“I know America is very nice and very good people,” he said. “I’m a professional athlete. I come here. I never have a problem with somebody about my religion, about my name. I am happy.

“I’m always comfortable because I never do anything wrong. All the time I do something right. I follow all the rules. Why do I have to feel uncomfortable?”

Following Nurmagomedov’s debut in the US with the UFC in 2012, it’s been his opponents who have felt uneasy after being driven to the canvas and mauled. Along the way any difficulties he suffered had more to with injuries, including a series of setbacks with his knees, than politics or what his foes could do. He briefly flirted with walking away from fighting after breaking a rib in 2015. That incident delayed a matchup with the man he fights Saturday, another bout in which Nurmagomedov will be expected to rely on his grappling because this is where he is significantly better than anyone he has fought.

“I don’t think I’ve had anyone that’s as good as him at doing that,” said Mendez, who has trained the likes of UFC champions Daniel Cormier and Cain Velasquez. Mendez has served as Khabib’s chief second in place of his father since 2012. “He’s just an incredibly tenacious grappler who just won’t quit. He’s a badger in a way, in that you ain’t stopping him.”

Two months prior to fights in the octagon, Nurmagomedov makes the trip to California to focus on his preparation.

“I train, eat, sleep and repeat.”

Yet fans continue to find him to express their admiration. Among American Muslims, few athletes these days have drawn their attention as much as Nurmagomedov. Prior to traveling to Las Vegas for the Ferguson fight, cameras following the fighter for UFC’s online documentary series Embedded caught a group of supporters making a surprise visit to AKA to wish him will. He promised them he would become the UFC’s first Muslim champion and they cheered intensely. As the face of a growing crop of Muslims competing and excelling in mixed martial arts, Nurmagomedov has come to represent more than a dominant competitor to the many people who love watching him fight.

“I feel they’re waiting for my victory,” he said. “I feel a lot of people are waiting for this belt. They want me to win this belt and I’m going to do this for sure.”