Ferguson vividly breaks down path to victory over Nurmagomedov

Tony Ferguson hasn't been short on time to map out his path to victory against Khabib Nurmagomedov. In fact, he's done so to the finest detail.

Should the fourth booking between the pair of top lightweights finally prove to be the charm at UFC 223 on April 7, the current interim champ doesn't just aim to beat Nurmagomedov, but to outclass him.

"I’m going to embarrass him," Ferguson recently told Newsday's Ryan Gerbosi. "I don’t want to hurt the guy, I’m going to embarrass him. So he’s got one chance to sit down, quit and walk away."

Nurmagomedov has relied on his first-rate grappling en route to a spotless 25-0 pro record, and Ferguson - a former collegiate wrestler - will look to treat the Russian to a familiar fate. "El Cucuy" also took Nurmagomedov's botched weight cut for their scrapped date at UFC 209 as a sign of frailty, and aims to test his rival's stamina by working the body before finishing him off the canvas.

"I’m going to put him on his back, I’m going to take him down. You think he’s been preparing any rubber guard? I hope so, but I don’t think so. He’s got no flexibility, his right knee is a bum knee. His conditioning is weak and his body, he’s really had a lot of problems with his weight cut. So where do you think I’m going to go with my punches?

"There’s no secret, I’m going to punish his body. Then I’m going to go upstairs, I’m going to take him down, I’m going to go knee-on-belly, I’m going to put my hand on his throat and I’m going to hold my hand up like a (expletive) wolverine claw and I’m going to tell him to (expletive) quit."

Nurmagomedov enlisted nutritionist Tyler Minton to better manage his cut to 155 pounds following the March fiasco that put the kibosh on his third booking opposite Ferguson, and hit the divisional mark without incident ahead of his lopsided decision win over Edson Barboza at UFC 219 in December. Ferguson, however, isn't convinced the sambo expert - as skilled as he is - boasts the mental fortitude required to hang with him in the cage for a full five rounds.

"The opponent we have right now typically is a sambo-style fighter and he’s very tough and has a strong head on his shoulders, but I just see that he’s weak in so many different departments that he had to hire a bigger team and really needed more time. If the dude was ready, he would have fought me in May, I gave him that opportunity. But he wanted to go fight somebody else. You don’t want to fight me, you never did."

The pair will close out UFC 223 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in what's expected to determine the lightweight division's undisputed champion.