Croydon’s ‘Poster Boy’ Jimi Manuwa believes he can become Britain’s first ever UFC champion.

The 32-year-old light-heavyweight prospect re-enters the octagon on Saturday at Wembley Arena, this time against towering 6ft 6in kick-boxing specialist Cyrille ‘The Snake’ Diabaté, 39, of France.

Manuwa, who has a perfect 12-0 fight record in mixed martial arts, opened his UFC account last September at Capital FM Arena, Nottingham with a clinical but impressive second round stoppage over Californian Kyle Kingsbury and hopes to produce a similar performance against the Frenchman.

He said:  “Diabaté’s a good striker and also good on the floor so I’m really looking forward to the fight.”

The Croydon man, who has been training with former UFC light-heavyweight champion and film actor Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, prior to Saturday’s big bout added: “You’re going to see a really exciting fight, I always finish my fights in style so it won’t be boring when you watch me, I predict a stoppage.”

And after fully dominating the UCMMA light-heavyweight division when he made five successful defences of his title, Nigerian-born Manuwa made the switch to the lucrative big league UFC organisation where he is now focusing on getting his hands on the belt which is currently held by USA’s Jon Jones.

“I knew the standard would be very high, UFC is the best in the world so you have the best fighters in the world," he said.

"I expect every fight to be hard but I have my goal and focus on being the best in the world.

“I’m planning to be the best in the world and I can win the world light-heavyweight title but in the meantime I’m just going to take one fight at a time.”

Tickets are available by calling 0844 844 0444 or logging on to ufc.com, otherwise catch all the action on ESPN from 8pm.