He loves Call of Duty. He was once a firefighter. And up until a month and a half ago, he was undefeated.

Now, coming off of his first loss, Anthony Pettis is more confident than he's ever been. His shoulder's back to normal after the injury, and his trainer is pushing him really hard out in Wisconsin.

On March 6, Pettis will face Danny Castillo on the undercard of WEC 47. With a 7-1 overall record - and a 1-1 record with the WEC - his two fights with the promotion have shown two different sides of his fighting skills. In his WEC debut, at WEC 41 in June 2009, he showed off his jiu-jitsu and earned a quick triangle choke submission victory over Mike Campbell. Six months later, at WEC 45, he put forth a lot of determination and lost a split decision battle to Bart Palaszewski.

On the day of his birthday, FiveKnuckles.com caught up with Pettis to talk about birthday presents, training camp, owning a gym, and the WEC cage.

FiveKnuckles.com: First off - Happy birthday!

Anthony Pettis: I'm 23! I'm gettin' old.

FiveKnuckles.com: So old. So very old. Do you have any plans for today?

Anthony Pettis: Just trained this morning. Went to lunch with my coach and Pat Barry. And I'm going to eat dinner at my mom's house.

FiveKnuckles.com: At least you get a little bit of a change up, right?

Anthony Pettis: Yeah, yeah. Usually, Wednesday is my day off. I just do conditioning in the mornings, so now I get to just chill out and spend some time with my mom.

FiveKnuckles.com: So then you lucked out that your birthday is on a Wednesday.

Anthony Pettis: Yeah, for sure! Well, I want to train today, but I gotta relax and focus on camp.

FiveKnuckles.com: Did you consider it a present from the WEC to be added to WEC 47 a few days before your bithday? An early birthday present, maybe?

Anthony Pettis: Oh, for sure! Fighting a fight is huge for me, especially - I'm gonna be 23 years old this year, so hopefully it'll be a good year for me. And I love the opponent, too. Got a tough guy. It's not gonna be a fight that doesn't mean nothing. Every fight means something. But this guy is ranked number six in the lightweight division. It could put me right where I wanna be at.

FiveKnuckles.com: You're both coming off of losses right now. How does that affect you coming into the fight? Are you preparing differently?

Anthony Pettis: Yeah. With my last fight, I don't even look at it as a loss. I mean, I didn't do what I had to do to finish Bart, but the judges decided. It was a controversial decision, too. I mean, I lost the fight no matter what, but it didn't hurt my confidence. You know what I'm trying to say? I don't look at it like, ‘Oh man, I got my ass kicked.' I can't forget that I need to finish everybody. No more going to the judges. Now I'm just training to finish fights hard.

FiveKnuckles.com: Can you say his last name?

Anthony Pettis: The guy I'm fighting? Or Bart Palaszewski?

FiveKnuckles.com: Oh,...