On Saturday night, everyone saw Anthony Pettis' left leg come up and land directly over Danny Castillo's eyes. When Castillo fell to the mat, Pettis followed him down and landed five punches before the ref declared the win.

When we spoke to Pettis last, he said that he'd need to show off his ground game in order to get another win. But instead, it was his stand up game that won him "Knock out of the Night" honors and improved his record to 8-1.

A few days after his big win, he spoke with FiveKnuckles.com about his first-round victory.

FiveKnuckles.com: Congratulations on your win!

Anthony Pettis: That was a big win! Couldn't have asked for a better fight.

FiveKnuckles.com: Feels good, doesn't it?

Anthony Pettis: Definitely. I'm injury-free, so it feels great.

FiveKnuckles.com: That's always good to hear. How'd you feel before the fight and going into it?

Anthony Pettis: Definitely, I was nervous. I was coming off a loss, so I knew I had to make a statement in this fight. I mean, he was coming off a loss too, so I knew we were both coming out to make a statement. And, fortunately for me, I made a big statement.

FiveKnuckles.com: Do you think it's time they took you from the undercard and put you on the main card then?

Anthony Pettis: I hope so! And the big problem is that it's twice that I've made the main card. I had a bad fight with Bart Palaszewski, and that pushed me back. I had shoulder surgery, I wasn't 100%, I couldn't fight, and I had a bad performance that night. Hopefully that doesn't effect is too much, but that knock out was huge. And I know from everyone at home I'm getting: "Man, that was a crazy knock out!" So I'm sure the WEC looked at that and will put me on the main card next time.

FiveKnuckles.com: How'd you celebrate your win? You usually go to the hospital, but you didn't get too busted up in this fight.

Anthony Pettis: No, nothing at all, I was injury-free. I walked to the back and I had nothing on my face. Nothing on me at all. So to celebrate my win, I went back to the hotel and just hung out with the team.

FiveKnuckles.com: So what's next for you?

Anthony Pettis: I don't have any fight scheduled. I just recently partnered up with Duke [Roufus] to open a gym up, so right now, that's my next big project, so I'm getting my gym up and running. And that's taking a lot of time, too, so I'm just training, too. I'm looking forward to that a lot. That's the reason why I fight. I wanna have gyms when I'm a little older. When I'm done fighting, I wanna be able to teach and give back what I learned to everybody else.