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Glendale, Ariz. – UFC, are you ready for “Showtime?” Because he’s coming soon. On a night wrapped in historical overtones, Anthony “Showtime” Pettis dethroned WEC lightweight champion Benson Henderson at Jobing.com Arena to earn a UFC title shot. Both fighters waged a back-and-forth battle that was worthy of Fight of the Night and may have been decided in the final 80 seconds of the fifth round. With the fight apparently up for grabs, Pettis went airborne, acrobatically bounced off the cage fence and executed a beautiful high kick that landed flush on the hometown champ’s jaw and dropped him to the canvas. It was an electrifying and unprecedented move that no one in press row had ever seen, like something out of a “The Matrix” movie. It sent the live crowd at the arena into mass hysteria. Henderson gamely weathered the crucial assault and got back to his feet, but that sequence may have anchored his defeat by unanimous decision. The riveting match was fittingly the last bout ever for the decade-old WEC, which is set to merge with its sister organization, the UFC. That means Pettis, a Milwaukee native who starred in an MTV episode of “World of Jenks,” is slated to fight the winner of the Jan. 1 bout between UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and unbeaten challenger Gray Maynard. An emotional Pettis, whose father was murdered during an armed robbery in 2003, credited his coach Duke Roufus for the one-of-a-kind kick that made a lot of people’s jaw drop. “We practice that all the time,” Pettis said, “and I’ve got 10 more kicks like that coming when I get to the UFC.” Roufus called the kick an “Ong Bak” kick, noting it is an old Muay Thai technique. Pettis dropped Henderson on another occasion with a stiff right hand, but barely survived a rear naked choke in the fourth round that was close to being dead on. Pettis was not the only man to make history Thursday night. Dominick Cruz did, too. Cruz’s handsome reward for a night’s work: Two world titles and a slice of history. The super-quick Californian used his ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ striking style to beat up No.1 challenger Scott Jorgensen for five rounds to become the UFC’s first-ever bantamweight champion.

Saturday night is the latest “biggest night” of Josh Koscheck’s life. So if he seems low-key, or quiet before his challenge for Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight title, it’s because he’s been here before, whether it was competing for a National Championship in wrestling, participating in big fight after big fight in the UFC, or just in his mind, where he’s probably replayed the scenarios that will present themselves this weekend over and over again. It’s just another night. “I just look at it as if it’s just another fight,” he said. “I haven’t really looked at it too deeply as if this is a monster fight. I’m being conservative and I’m coming into this fight well-prepared. That’s pretty much where I’m at with my mindset right now.” Of course, deep in his heart, Koscheck knows that the UFC 124 main event is not just another fight. A win over St-Pierre will not only net him the 170-pound title, it will change his life forever. When the history of the UFC is written, Koscheck will have his place in the Hall of Champions, something that could never be taken away. He’s also talked about fighting for the money in the past, and having a UFC title belt will significantly impact his bank account in a positive manner. So this is far from just a routine trip north of the border, and he’s smart enough to realize that. But he won’t blink, won’t give a look past the wall he’s built up over the course of an intense training camp. Not now, it’s not time. So when he’s asked if he pictured placing the belt around his waist, his resolve remains strong. “I haven’t thought about it yet, and I’m not worried about it,” he said. “I’ve got a fight to worry about, and I don’t think about the belt. I don’t think about anything but fighting. It’s just another fight for me, and it so happens that I get to go into Montreal, Georges’ hometown, and fight him, and that’s all I’m concerned about right now.” That’s what has brought Josh Koscheck to this moment. He’s the straightest of straight shooters, whether you like what he has to say or not, and he will not play the game just for the sake of playing it. When he does anything, it’s with one goal in mind – to win. And winning has been a habit of his since he was a child. He’s got the accolades to prove it – A 2001 NCAA Division I National Championship for Edinboro University, four-time recognition as an All-American, and 17 mixed martial arts wins against just four defeats, with much of that time spent growing up in public in the UFC. You don’t reach this point without being tough, without having a measure of resolve that allows you to step into an Octagon and be resigned to the fact that another man will punch you for the next 15 or 25 minutes. Every fighter in this sport has that. Koscheck believes he has a little more, and he definitely believes he has more than the champion he faces Saturday night. “I think that is the case on Georges,” he said when asked whether his 2007 appraisal of St-Pierre being mentally weak still applied today. “But the question is, has anybody put him to that test or put him to that point? A couple guys have (Matt Hughes and Matt Serra), and you saw the results. They put him in a position that he wasn’t comfortable with. And that’s the same position that I’ve got to take on this – I’ve got to put him in a position where he’s uncomfortable and make him quit. Every man has a breaking point and I gotta put him in that position to where he’s questioning himself and questioning that he can win this fight.” Years of wrestling will build you into a mentally tough, hard to break fighter, and that’s what Koscheck expects will take him through his first five round bout. In fact, he expects nothing less than to break GSP and to take his belt

It’s a fact that can’t be confirmed, but it’s probably safe to say that every fighter has done it, practicing what he would say if interviewed by the worldwide media, dreaming of how he would win his debut on the sport’s biggest stage. Most never get that chance, and many who do freeze under the bright lights. Sean McCorkle got his chance earlier this year, chosen to make his UFC debut in his hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana against Mark Hunt. It was the classic ‘be careful what you wish for’ scenario, and watching McCorkle in the weeks leading up to the biggest fight of his career was almost like observing a teenage science experiment you almost expected to start sprouting flames and smoke. McCorkle, 34 years old and with a gaudy 9-0 record against a nondescript crew of opponents, was the hometown favorite, but also unproven. In fact, in the lead-up to the bout, the “Big Sexy” got more attention for his pre-fight interviews than for his previous exploits in the ring. It was a recipe for disaster, because it just seemed impossible that he would be able to hold it together during fight week and then in the fight itself. But then a funny thing happened. McCorkle made it to fight week, stole the show with the media, and then as he walked into the Octagon to face the PRIDE and K-1 vet, he didn’t have a deer in the headlights look, but one of confidence, one that said ‘I belong here and I’m about to show you why.’ Then he did, submitting Hunt in just 67 seconds. “This is gonna sound completely crazy, but I never had a doubt in my mind that I was gonna beat Mark Hunt and do it convincingly,” said McCorkle. “I don’t know why, and even walking out there, I’m thinking ‘it’s gonna be so awesome if I go out here and submit him fast.’ I just knew. It’s just a feeling that I have that I feel like I’m finally doing what I was meant to do in my life. Not to get all hokey, but I just feel at home. I thought I would be so nervous, but as I walked around, I was like ‘this is pretty awesome to be able to do this.’” Even back in the locker room after the UFC 119 bout, McCorkle walked around like he was in a dream, prompting a wake-up call from a training partner and longtime fight game vet. “Tom Erikson told me when I came back after the Hunt fight backstage, ‘you know this is real now, you’re not dreaming,’” said McCorkle. “He saw that glassy look in my eyes. I said ‘I hope I’m not knocked out lying in the Octagon right now and I just dreamed that I won.’ That whole night will be tough to top in anything I do because it was in front of my hometown, nobody expected me to win the fight, and I was a 4 to 1 betting underdog.” He wasn’t just an underdog in the Octagon, but an underdog in life heading into the Conseco Fieldhouse, having bounced back in 2010 from a crippling divorce and a three year layoff to run off three straight wins before getting the call to the UFC. “I went through hell for 20 months and it was the worst period of my life,” he said. “I would never say that I was suicidal, but I was on the brink of being down that low to where everything I had ever worked for was taken from me in the matter of three months. And not just money wise, but I had a real bitter, nasty divorce, not from my end, but from her end, and this was someone that I was boyfriend/girlfriend with since third grade. You’re talking a long history there, and the way she did it was just horrendous. I got as low as you could possibly get, so now I appreciate everything that much more, and to have anything go my way is great now. And I just keep hoping that it doesn’t end soon, and maybe that’s why I work so hard at it.” Dropping from over 300 pounds to the 265 pound heavyweight limit, McCorkle showed his commitment for the Hunt bout, but in this game, it’s what have you done for me lately, so just days after his first UFC victory, he got the call to face fellow prospect Stefan Struve at UFC 124 this Saturday in Montreal. On paper, it’s a great style matchup, and with McCorkle at 6 foot 7 and Struve at 6 foot 11, it’s a clash of giants fans will love. But McCorkle wanted more – he didn’t just want a good matchup, he wanted his fight with Struve to be on the main card. So he took his case to the internet, where he has been opening fire on the soft-spoken “Skyscraper” on Twitter. “I had a whole lot of pent-up trash talking from the whole Mark Hunt fight because a guy like him who has accomplished as much as he has and who I was always a fan of, I didn’t feel comfortable saying anything about him and it absolutely killed me because I had great ideas,” laughs McCorkle, who had some reservations at first about engaging in a smack talk war with his 22-year old foe. “I really wanted to be on the main card and I was looking to initiate something with him, but he’s a quiet kid and he seems nice,” he explained. “I kinda hate to do that if he’s not gonna respond, and then he comes out on Twitter and starts saying stuff about me first – and I was like, perfect. Now the chains are off. It’s kinda got out of control, but we got on the main card.” Not just the main card, but McCorkle and Struve will be the last fight before the UFC 124 championship bout between Georges St-Pierre and Josh Koscheck. It shows the power of ‘getting it’ and knowing how to promote a fight. McCorkle gets it, knowing that while this is a sport, people are also paying a lot of money to be entertained. “The UFC is a sport, but it’s also entertainment the way the NFL is entertainment,” said McCorkle. “I always tell people if they want purity of sports, go watch chess or the Olympics or something. (Laughs) This is entertainment and it’s why people come to watch it and pay to watch it – it’s to be entertained. And I look at guys like Struve – no one I know even knew who he was before I was gonna fight him, and he’s fought six times in the UFC. And that comes from just giving the standard answers like ‘I’m really training hard,’ and ‘I’m looking forward to this.’ I consider it as much of a part of my job to entertain people as it is to fight. I’ve seen a lot of guys that don’t have any personality who are really good fighters that the UFC cuts after a boring fight or two and no one cares and no one even knows they fought. If I’m gonna go in there and lose, I’m gonna lose big. People ask me, aren’t you worried about motivating him? No, because number one, Struve’s not the guy to beat me, I can promise you that.