Zviad Lazishvili is set to make his LFA debut next month, and hopes it’s the start of big things to come in his MMA career.

He takes on Josh Huber at LFA 78 on Oct. 4, and the undefeated native of Georgia in Eastern Europe has aspirations to make it to the UFC one day.

“I truly believe that LFA is the avenue to bigger accomplishments and signing with the biggest leagues,” Lazishvili said. “I have all the tools to get there and fight with best fighters in the world. I am very grateful to God to have all these people around me who are supporting me and helping me in every aspect of life.”

Lazishvili (11-0 MMA) moved to the United States in search of bigger and better opportunities. He joined Kaizen MMA, which resulted in him getting on LFA’s radar. Coming from a grappling background, Lazishvili took inspiration from his father, who was a world champion wrestler.

“My father is a freestyle wrestler – two-time world champion, five-time prize winner as a veteran,” Lazishvili said. “I always wanted to follow his steps and be a wrestler, but he never wanted to help me to be a good wrestler because to him, education always was the most important priority. So I had to learn from teachers that were not motivated to teach me, and I think that’s why most friends around me believe I am a quick learner. Down the road, I started submission grappling and eventually I got into MMA.”

Always undersized, he got involved in a few scraps growing up, which he credits for helping develop his fighting abilities. He recalls getting in a fight when he was 17 in which he took out four adults, taking a bit of a beating in the process. It was that particular fight that got the attention of his first coach, Koba Tkeshelashvili, who took him under his wing and offered to train him.

And everything changed from there.

“He told me that he could just teach me how to defend myself,” Lazishvili said of his coach. “I never imagined that I would become a professional fighter, but when I started training I was literally obsessed with MMA. I was training so hard and after three months of training, I had my first fight. It’s very hard to be an athlete in my country. You have to take care of your family and you have no time for training.”

Lazishvili then moved to Russia, and eventually to the United States, where he decided to focus on his education. He holds an MBA from Bay Atlantic University, and has now fully diverted his attention back to fighting.

When he takes on Huber, it will be his first fight in more than four years, but the 27-year-old is confident he’ll be able to control the pace of the fight.

“He is a true warrior and I like his character as a fighter,” Lazishvili said. “I watched couple of his fights and he does not know how to give up – and I like these kind of fighters. I think he is well-rounded with a lot of experience, but I think I am faster and more explosive, and if I touch him he can go down. Knowing that he has a lot heart, we will see how many rounds this fight will last.”

Lazishvili said if he could compare his style to any fighter, it would be UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who has made a career of mauling opponents.

Lazishvili thinks he possesses a similar style.

“I have trained in many different countries, including Russia, and I could compare myself with Khabib Nurmagomedov’s fight style,” Lazishvili said. “People from that region love wrestling and grappling, so I have a smash-like game and love to wear out my opponents, control them and finish. But on the other hand, I love the striking game, too, because it is more entertaining for the crowd and you get more attention. Where I come from, we spar hard. So I am very used to hard exchanges in the standup fight, as well.”