LAS VEGAS – Christian Mbilli believes he has already earned an opportunity to fight the winner of the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford fight Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium.

Mbilli obviously would need to defeat a “dangerous” opponent in Guatemala’s Lester Martinez (19-0, 16 KOs) on the undercard to remain in that position. More than that, Mbilli (29-0, 24 KOs) feels he’ll “have to be spectacular” in winning the most difficult fight of his career to create public demand for him to challenge Alvarez or Crawford for The Ring, IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO super middleweight titles.

“I’m very happy to be here,” Mbilli told a group of reporters Wednesday at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. “And I’m gonna show the world that I’m the next opponent of Canelo or Crawford.”

Montreal’s Mbilli beat Poland’s Maciej Sulecki (33-4, 13 KOs) by first-round technical knockout in his last fight to win the WBC interim 168-pound championship. That impressive victory June 27 in Quebec City, Canada also made Mbilli the WBC’s mandatory challenger for one of Alvarez’s titles.

The confident Cameroonian told The Ring that he understands he is a risky assignment for Alvarez, who might opt to face other opponents if the Mexican icon defeats Crawford in a main event Netflix will stream worldwide. Fighting for a vacant title would be a lot less lucrative for the 30-year-old Cameroonian mauler, but he holds out hope that he will get the opportunity to prove himself against Alvarez (63-2-2, 39 KOs) or Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs).

“The goal is to be the champion, to be the number one, and right now, I’m the number two,” Mbilli said. “And I hope after this fight I will have [the] opportunity to fight the number one of the division.”

Mbilli is The Ring’s No. 1-ranked super middleweight contender. Crawford is not ranked in The Ring’s top 10 because he will make his division debut versus Alvarez.

Mbilli respects Crawford’s capabilities, yet he expects Alvarez’s experience in their division to separate him from his fellow four-weight world champion.

“I think Canelo gonna win,” Mbilli said. “Canelo is a real super middleweight. It’s his division. For me, I don’t think you can take weight like this and do the same performance, like you have done in the past. I think maybe, for me, I think the weight will be the difference. It makes it different.”

Mbilli-Martinez will be the second of three fights Netflix streams as part of its Alvarez-Crawford undercard coverage (9 p.m. ET; 6 p.m. PT). DraftKings lists Mbilli as a slight favorite over Martinez (-185/+145) in advance of their 10-rounder.