You can catch the beautiful Kristen Bell on Showtime tonight as “House of Lies” returns for a second season. Kristen plays Jeannie Van Der Hooven, a management consultant working for the intense Marty kaan (Don Cheadle). She’s ambitious and will do what it takes to succeed, even sleeping with the old guy running the company, and she has some relationship issues. She’s also pretty damn sexy dancing in her underwear as you can in the clip below.

We have some photos of Kristen from the series above, along with some sexy shots of her from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Couples Retreat.” Finally, we have a great shot of her from her shoot with our friends with Maxim.

The WIGS channel on YouTube could unkindly be called the online equivalent of television’s Lifetime network, specializing in stories of the lives of women that are, ironically, primarily created by men. The first of these web series is “Jan,” created, written and directed by Jon Avnet, who is probably best known for producing hit ’80s and ’90s films like “Risky Business” and “Fried Green Tomatoes,” the latter of which he also directed. Like the superior “Blue,” “Jan” is simply named after its lead character, Jan (Caitlin Gerard), an aspiring photographer who has just gotten what might be her big break, so long as her life doesn’t get in the way.

Jan works as an assistant to Mel (Virginia Madsen), an established photographer whose latest project is a book called “Afterglow,” which is a collection of shots of women immediately after the completion of sexual encounters. The first session features British movie star couple Gery (Stephen Moyer, best known as Bill Compton on HBO’s “True Blood”) and Andie (Jaime Murray, best known as Lila Tournay on the second season of Showtime’s “Dexter”). Gery seems to immediately like Jan and, when Mel is preoccupied with a phone call at the crucial moment, he convinces her to take the shots instead, which leads to Jan being fired. Luckily for her, deadline pressures from the magazine Mel works for causes her to rehire Jan, though Mel takes the credit for the photographs and warns Jan that she is on thin ice.

Jan also has a junkie boyfriend, Robbie (Kyle Gallner), who is constantly pestering her and her roommate, Vanessa (Laura Spencer), and complicating their lives. This subplot should make the series more interesting, but what it mainly does instead is make everything feel less focused. The tone of the entire series is very uneven, and quirks like Jan’s initial clumsiness and her habit of getting the hiccups when she’s nervous come and go without ever really going anywhere interesting. Likewise, the late addition of a new boyfriend for Jan feels inconsequential and tacked on, despite the conflict it would seem likely to create with Robbie, the ex, and Gery, who flirts openly with Jan and drops by her place to take showers (another contrived quirk that feels less than genuine). All in all, the stakes are never really high enough, nor is Jan a compelling enough character to make this series particularly worthwhile. Check out “Blue” instead, if you want to see what the WIGS channel is like.

Here’s an event we wish attended. Beautiful actress Meagan Good performs with the Pussycat Dolls in Las Vegas! Check out the red carpet interviews and then clips from the amazing performance featuring Meagan and the dolls in some sexy lingerie for the performance.

Check out our Meagan Good slideshow with some pics from Showtime’s “Californication” and her movies, and also check out this awesome Meagan Good gallery on Celebrity Teaser.

So…where were we?

Oh, fine, let’s go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room: it’s been nine months since Bullz-Eye doled out its last TV Power Rankings. What can we say? There were a lot of good shows on the air between May 2011 and February 2012, and somewhere around late October, it just kind of reached a point where we said, “You know what? It’s way more fun to watch TV than it is to write about it.” Eventually, though, the powers that be pried us off the couch (there’s still an indentation where we were sitting), set us back in front of the computer, and said, “Look, the readers demand to know Bullz-Eye’s take on the best shows of the past year* and, frankly, they’re starting to get a little belligerent about it.”

(*Rounded up for statistical purposes.)

So here we are, ready to offer up our list of the 25 best shows on television** as well as several shows bubbling just under our list, plus a new section called “Still Too New to Call,” where we praise shows that seem pretty damned good after their first few episodes but simply haven’t been around long enough for us to feel comfortable including them in the other two lists.

(**Okay, technically, it’s the 24 best shows on television plus one show that hasn’t been on since 2010, but we’re so excited about that particular show coming back that we included it, anyway.)

All told, we hope you’ll walk away from this piece either nodding your head in agreement or wondering why you haven’t been watching some of these shows. If not, however, there’s a perfectly good Comments section that’s just waiting for your opinions about what’s good on TV.

Everybody ready? Then let’s get this thing started…

No, it’s not quite the same show it used to be, owing to the fact that the cast now consists of almost as many women as it does men, but with the series now in its fifth season, the trio of Kaley Cuouo, Melissa Rauch, and Mayim Bialik have probably infused “The Big Bang Theory” with more laughs than the it would’ve had at this point if it had stuck strictly to the original four geeks. The only question now is how much longer we’ll have to wait for Raj to come out of the closet…because, seriously, you don’t need to possess gay-dar to see that that’s what they’re leading up to.

When we first picked back up with Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) for the seventh season of “Weeds,” she’d spent three years cooling her heels in the clink while the rest of the Botwin clan had been chillin’ in Copenhagen, but with Nancy being shifted to a halfway house in New York City, a family reunion was only inevitable. Big shock: Nancy started selling pot again. Possibly bigger shock: even going into its eighth season, “Weeds” is still reliably entertaining.

When it comes to watching “New Girl,” one’s level of appreciation is directly proportionate to how one feels about the concept of “adorkability,” which Zooey Deschanel brings to the small screen in seemingly limitless quantities as Jess, a too-cute twentysomething who moves in with a trio of guys on the heels of an excruciatingly bad breakup. As with most ensemble comedies, it’s taken time for the chemistry of the cast to find its feet, but it’s coming along nicely.

Some shows are perfect fare for guys and gals to kick back and enjoy together, but, guys, unless you have one of the most awesome girlfriends ever, then “Archer” probably doesn’t quality as one of those shows. Sterling Archer has the libido of James Bond and Austin Powers put together but without any of the charm, and not only is he unfailingly uncouth, but he’s a mama’s boy to boot. Damned if he isn’t funny, though, and Season 3 has started off just as funny as its predecessors…but, then, what would you expect when you’ve got Burt Reynolds playing himself?

As long as the beautiful ménage à trois between stupid people, video cameras, and the internet continues to flourish, Daniel Tosh’s career will stay in full bloom. Now in its fourth season, “Tosh.0″ may not be the most highbrow series on the air, but it’s never at a loss for material and still offers a solid number of laughs per episode.

David Steinberg began his career in comedy with Chicago’s Second City, quickly gaining fame as a stand-up through his appearances on “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” while also courting controversy by performing comedic “sermons” on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” In 1981, Steinberg began to shift his focus from performing to directing, starting with the Burt Reynolds film “Paternity,” and has gone on to become one of the more prolific sitcom directors in the business, but he recently stepped back in front of the camera to host the new Showtime series, “Inside Comedy,” which airs Thursdays at 11 PM. Steinberg spoke with Bullz-Eye about his new gig, detailing the trials and tribulations of securing classic clips to accompany his interviews, while also discussing some of his past efforts as an actor, director, and stand-up comedian.

[NOTE: All photos appear courtesy of TheDavidSteinberg.com.]

Bullz-Eye: This is certainly not your first time hosting a show where you interview comedians: you also brought us Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg. Not that there isn’t still plenty of material yet to mine, but what inspired you to take another crack at it?

David Steinberg: I felt that I hadn’t really done it the way I wanted to. That’s why we first started this as a film. Starting it as a film was really good, because then you get so much material, and it’s sort of looser or whatever. And then I settled on this notion of putting two people together and how they connect, but not in any specific ways. They just go together by what they’re talking about. And once I arrived at that, I thought, “This is gonna be good!” [Laughs.] Of course, making it that good…it was time consuming, but it was great, great fun. I worked with some incredible editors, and there was a lot of archival stuff that we talk about that…well, they know that they’re talking to another comedian. That’s the bottom line. And then, archivally, I didn’t just do the clichéd version. I handpicked the clips that I wanted and then begged people to let me use them. [Laughs.] Archival stuff takes so long to get people to sign off on.

BE: Was there anything you wanted to use that, even with all of your pleading, you still couldn’t get?

DS: Yeah, for Jonathan Winters, I had a clip of him in an old Dean Martin roast where he’s roasting (Ronald) Reagan, and in it there’s a wide shot where you could see Dean Martin, Reagan, (Don) Rickles, Phyllis Diller, and… [Sighs.] You know, it’s generally not the original inheritors of the celebrity estates that are the problem. It’s the grandchildren, who don’t even know or understand what it means to be celebrating Jonathan Winters. They asked for so much money everywhere that we couldn’t use it. I ended up having to go with just a tight shot of Jonathan instead. So, y’know, just stuff like that drove me nuts. For the most part, though, I got everything I wanted. Some were just so exorbitant that I just couldn’t do it. But I’m happy with it.

BE: Speaking of Jonathan Winters on Showtime, he also appeared on The Green Room with Paul Provenza not so terribly long ago. It’s great to see people as yourself and Paul continuing to give him the props he deserves.

DS: That’s right, yeah. I will say that the younger comedians tend to look after the older ones. Richard Lewis goes out to Santa Barbara and spends time with him, and Sarah Silverman has done that with Phyllis Diller. It’s very interesting, the comedy community. It’s more surprising and tight-knit than you would imagine.

BE: When it came time to pull together your guest list for the show, did you have an even blend of close friends and a wish list?

DS: Yeah. A lot I knew, and a lot I didn’t. Like, I didn’t know Chris Rock very well, and he proved to be one of the more interesting interviews. There are a whole lot of interviews that are still in the can that are so good: Judd Apatow, Ben Stiller, Lily Tomlin, Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke… I tried them in the first round, and…they’re great, but it was how things matched up. But I’m optimistic that we’ll get a second year. The level of celebrity in these people is huge. They’re all the best and the biggest.

BE: What’s the percentage of Canadian content?

DS: [Laughs.] Well, Martin Short and I are the Canadian content. But I would love to have gotten Eugene Levy. I do use a lot of SCTV. You know, I put that group together in a show that I did in the ‘70s (The David Steinberg Show). So, no, not a big percentage of Canadians for someone like me, who’s so pro-Canadian. [Laughs.]

BE: When you appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, you stumbled into some controversy with one of your bits on the show.

DS: Yeah, well, I was doing sermons. [Laughs.] It was something I’d developed at Second City: I’d take a suggestion of any Old Testament personality and do a sermon about them. I’ve got the background in that from my family and from having been at a yeshiva and all that, so I really knew it well. For a comedian, anyway. [Laughs.] Not for a scholar. So I did an album of the sermons, and it was very popular, but it was also very controversial even then. Tom and Dick (Smothers), Tom especially, just couldn’t get over the uniqueness of it, and he said, “Let’s put it on the air!”

So when he put one of the sermons on the air – I think the first one was Moses – I’d gone to New York, and I came back a week later and, because we were friends by this point, we were hanging out, and he said very excitedly, “I want to show you something!” And he opened up the door to this room, and there were just bundles and bundles of mail. And I said, “What’s that?” He said, “It’s your hate mail!” [Laughs.] As if I should be so pleased and excited by this! He was thrilled that it created such an uproar. But then he was told not to do another sermon. Of course, he says, “We love Steinberg, we’re going to have him on again!” Anyway, after I did another kind of Second City sketch with Tommy, he said, “God, the audience still wants more of you. Why don’t you do another sermon?” And the one I chose to go with was Jonah. And the rest is history: it became the reason they were thrown off the air.

You know, there were other political reasons. History sort of rewrites itself, and they say that…Tommy and Dick have sort of been playing down how the sermons were the reason for them going off the air. Because when you listen to them now, they don’t really sound that controversial. But having been the person who did it, it was a completely irreverent presence on television, probably the likes of which had never been there before. So they walked right into the trap of giving the network what they wanted, which was a reason to throw them off, because who isn’t offended by religion?

BE: Before you appeared on Comedy Hour, you were actually a writer on its predecessor, The Summer Brothers Smothers Show, correct?

DS: That’s right. Yeah, Bob Einstein and I wrote for the show. And before that, I was…I sort of broke as a stand-up comedian a couple of years before that. I was already on The Tonight Show as a sort of regular. In fact, I’d already guest-hosted The Tonight Show by the time I was working with the Smothers Brothers.

BE: You were – and, I guess, still are – the youngest person ever to guest-host The Tonight Show.

DS: Yeah, still am. [Laughs.]

BE: How weird was that, to find yourself in such a lofty position at such a young age?

DS: You know, I was so stupid. [Laughs.] You know, with the stupidness of youth, I thought, “Oh, this is pretty great, now I’m hosting The Tonight Show.” Only when I look back now do I go, “Oh, my God, what an incredible thing has happened to me…” At the time, though, I was, like, “Okay, so this is happening.” I was not a guy that was after stardom in any big way. It was just, like, “How do I get really good at this?” And so was the whole community that I was with. Tommy and Dick, they were happy to be stars and all that, because we needed that to be able to do what we wanted to do, but what we really wanted to know was, “How do we get better and better and better?” Comedy was breaking from its old formula, and we were sort of exploring new avenues in the late ‘60s.

BE: The Smothers Brothers managed to blend both comedy and music on their show. You did somewhat of the same thing not much later, when you hosted Music Scene.

DS: Oh, and the performers on that show were unbelievable. It was B.B. King, Janis Joplin…I mean, it was the biggest music stars of the era. Smokey Robinson. John Sebastian. It started out with a group of us from Second City – The Committee, which was a Second City offshoot – but they ended up firing everyone except for me and Lily Tomlin as the hosts. And we were married to Billboard’s Top 100, so every week, no matter what was the popular song, we had to parody it. It was kind of an early Saturday Night Live sort of thing, really. But what we never counted on was that “Sugar, Sugar” would be the number-one song for five weeks in a row. [Laughs.] After three weeks of doing increasingly lame parodies, we just couldn’t figure out what to do with it. But then Lily was whisked away to do Laugh In, and I was left as the host, and…we knew the show was going to be going off the air in about eight weeks, so they said, “You can have anyone you want as a co-host.” So I got Groucho Marx to be my co-host one week, Steve Allen another week…it turned out to be a pretty trippy show in the end.

BE: How was Groucho as a co-host?

DS: Groucho was incredible. We were really good friends. I wrote a draft of the play Minnie’s Boys, and I spent about six months with him. He was lecherous and funny…up to form, basically. [Laughs.] There was a thistle in his kiss, so to speak. He was as acerbic as could be.

BE: Of your standup albums, I think 1974’s Booga! Booga! is probably the best known, if only by virtue of the fact that Sony reissued it in the ‘90s, but there are three others. Is there any one of that bunch that particularly stands out for you?

DS: Well, Disguised as a Normal Person has pretty good material. It’s all the material I was doing in the late ‘60s, and that came out in 1970. Booga! Booga! is very honed. I’d started to get it down good. Before that is The Incredible Shrinking God (1968), a not-easy-to-get album, but that was just the sermons, recorded at Second City. But the last album I did, which got really good reviews and I think maybe even a Grammy nod, was a concept album I wrote with Don Novello. It was called Goodbye to the ‘70s, and we wrote it in 1975.It was about an Arab takeover in America, and I became the sell-out, the Bob Hope type sell-out who was best friends with the Arab President. And that was…maybe we smoked a little bit too much grass. [Laughs.] But I remember it as being very good at the time.

BE: You mentioned The David Steinberg Show earlier. I have to admit that I’ve never actually seen it, but I’ve often seen it referenced as a precursor to The Larry Sanders Show.

DS: It was. In fact, I think Garry (Shandling) even talks about it. But it was a precursor by so many years that you can’t really think of in those terms. But, yeah, I played a character who was an egotistical version of myself – which some people would say is a redundancy – and it was a show within a show. I was sort of copying the old Burns & Allen show. Marty Short plays sort of a sleazy lounge-singer cousin of mine, and John Candy played the Doc Severinsen of the show, Spider Reichman, who worshipped Dizzy Gillespie. It was written by Ziggy Steinberg, one of my closest friends, and…we loved it. We loved doing it. It was just great. It’s sort of an iconic show. Marty’s particularly amazing it. But, then, he’s just amazing, anyway. He’s the funniest human being ever.

BE: I know Dave Foley is also a big fan of the show.

DS: Yes, he is. And then he and I worked together on The Wrong Guy, which is probably one of my favorite things that I’ve ever directed.

BE: Yeah, he’s said it’s one of his favorites as well. But it’s a film that earns decidedly mixed opinions: either it’s a comedy gem, or it’s not funny at all.

DS: That’s absolutely true. You never know what people are going to like or not like. It was a real comedy writer’s film. I got more work as a director from that, just from show runners and comedy writers who knew that it was good. Good or bad, though, it probably still would’ve done better if the company hadn’t gone bankrupt.

BE: Speaking of directing, your first time behind the camera was for Paternity, with Burt Reynolds.

DS: Yes. Burt gave me my first directing job, which was not a little thing. He had to fight Paramount to get them to let me direct it. But it started my whole career. He and I were really good friends, and…I think Burt Reynolds was one of the most underrated comic personalities of the ‘70s. He was as good on The Tonight Show as any comedian who was ever on the show. Things sort of took a turn later on, but at his peak, he was quite remarkable. Yeah, Paternity was first, and then Going Berserk… [Starts to laugh.] It’s not a good movie. But it became a cable stable, and it was also shown as a midnight movie in places like Washington. Not quite Rocky Horror, but…

BE: What made you decide to make the shift from actor to director?

DS: Well, you know, I never really liked acting that much. I did like standup, but I just couldn’t be on the road anymore. I always thought I could direct, though. I always felt…I liked, when I was on the set, to help everyone. And I was a fan of films. I know my movies very well. So I just got interested in it, and…I was still doing comedy, doing gigs all the way through the ’80s and up through the ‘90s. I was still doing The Tonight Show every six or seven months or so. But the directing just built and built and built, and all of a sudden it was a career.

BE: You’ve worked on just about every major sitcom at this point. Who would you say was the most surprising person you’ve worked with, someone you knew about but, when you got the show, left you thoroughly impressed?

DS: You know, from an acting point of view, the women were so impressive that it was unbelievable. I mean, on a show that’s a little broad, like, say, Designing Women, Dixie Carter and Annie Potts, Judith Ivey and Jan Hooks, they were unbelievable to me. The acting chops were incredible. I always remember that in particular. I couldn’t get over the comic abilities and sensibilities of Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt on Mad About You, either. I’d ask them to talk faster, and they talked faster, to the point where it felt like we were doing a Howard Hawks film. That was great.

BE: Lastly, you’ve helmed several episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Given his seemingly natural state of crankiness, is it even possible to direct Larry David?

DS: [Laughs.] It is possible. It’s totally possible. Larry’s very collaborative, actually. He’s a much more generous guy than he plays on TV. [Laughs.]

Although described on its cover as “a chronicle of Paul McCartney’s cathartic journey through New York City in the aftermath of 9/11,” one doesn’t necessarily see a great deal of catharsis going on in “The Love We Make,” which originally aired on Showtime earlier this year. Granted, it’s easily arguable that the effects are internal, but the truth of the matter is that the majority of what we see can best be classified in two ways: the bits where McCartney hangs out with famous people, and the bits where average Americans are beside themselves about the fact that they’ve just had a close encounter with an actual, honest to God Beatle.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these things: it’s kind of amusing to see someone walking down the street and suddenly realize that they’re looking at Paul McCartney, and, truth be told, it’s also entertaining to be a fly on the wall when celebrities are in conversation with each other, particularly if – as is the case here – they slip into a casual familiarity that’s rarely on display when they’re being interviewed. But the film’s co-director, Albert Maysles, suggests that McCartney’s intent with “The Love You Make” was to use music to bring relief to those who were impacted by the 9/11 attacks and honor those who lost their lives in their efforts to save lives, and while that’s fair enough, the end result would be a lot more entertaining if it wasn’t presented in such a pretentious fashion. I mean, a photo of the State of Liberty on the cover? Really, Paul…? No one’s trying to suggest that you didn’t have good intentions by sticking around NYC in the wake of the attacks and trying to raise people’s spirits, but c’mon…

Although “The Love We Make” isn’t nearly as profound as its presentation tries to make you think it is, McCartney fans will still enjoy the film if they take it simply as – Beatles reference utterly intentional – a day in the life of their hero. We see him practice with his band and watch him do a few interviews, including an appearance on Howard Stern’s show. (Pre-interview, he encounters fellow Stern guest Ozzy Osbourne for what is, amazingly enough, the first meeting between the two rock icons; post-interview, McCartney seems shocked that Stern asked him if he’d ever had sex with a black woman, confirming conclusively that, although he may have been aware of Stern, he clearly hadn’t listened to him very much.) Later, we see Sir Paul dismiss a passerby who tries to get plane fare out of him and watch him get annoyed by autograph seekers who refuse to stop following his limo. There’s also a great moment when McCartney is clearly in no way as excited to hear about the Beatles cover band The Fab Faux as one of its members, Will Lee, is to tell him about it.

Is “The Love We Make” worth seeing? It is if you’re a fan of Paul McCartney. Even then, though, keep your expectations realistic. Just because the man has good intentions doesn’t mean that the end result is always going to be a career highlight…and if you don’t believe me, you need only listen to his song “Freedom,” which he offers up as the grand finale of his performance at the Concert for New York. God bless him for trying to raise everyone’s spirits, but the song’s pretty terrible.

Don’t worry, though: “The Love We Make” is better. At least a bit, anyway.

It has been whirlwind year for Pettis, who picked up a major sponsorship with AMP Energy and was featured on MTV’s “World of Jenks” over the past few months all while climbing the WEC lightweight ladder. With his lifelong dream and a world of opportunity within his grasp, Pettis took some time from preparing for Henderson to speak will Bullz-Eye.com about this.

Bullz-Eye: Well, Anthony, the fight is getting closer, how do you feel your training is going as you are winding down your camp?

Anthony Pettis: I am feeling great. I have had a great camp. I am ready. I have pushed myself to the limits everyday. I leave it all in practice. If Ben is going to beat me it is because he is truly better than me, not because I didn’t prepare the right way.

BE: What about the concept of a five-round fight? How have you been working on your cardio for this fight and how do you feel about your conditioning if it goes into those later rounds?

AP: I hired a great strength and conditioning coach that I have been working with for the last two fights and we have been pushing it. The only way to prepare for a five-round fight is to push your cardio and push yourself to the limits. I have been doing that everyday and I have been sparring six-minute rounds and I have been feeling good. My coach, Duke Roufus, really knows how to get ready for a fight and he is pushing me hard.

BE: Do you have to change your mindset for this fight knowing you may have to go an extra 10 minutes than a normal bout?

AP: I am not changing anything. I am training myself to give 100 percent every second of every round. I am pushing myself to the limits. I really am pushing myself to my limits. I want to be able to go, go, go. I want to take the fight anywhere and everywhere. I am not going to be looking to take it easy for a couple of rounds. I am going to push a fast pace and do my all to keep winning the fight at all times.

BE: What do you see when you watch Ben Henderson on film? What stands out about him? He seems like he just has a little bit of everything and doesn’t excel in any one area.

AP: Yeah, I am glad you said that because clearly Ben is a great fighter and he is a great champion that is tough in every aspect, but he has holes in his game just like everyone does. I mean, I have holes in my game. My coach has been watching a lot of tape on him and he has been training me for certain positions and situations that are going to help me capitalize and get a win in this fight. I have some great training partners that even look like Ben. The thing I have to look out for is his cardio because he is relentless and I can’t let myself lose focus.

BE: Without giving away your strategy for the fight, in what areas do you feel you are superior to Henderson?

AP: It is simple, for this fight I want to be the better fighter everywhere. His wrestling is great, his striking is good, and his cardio is good. I have to be ready for anything and be just a little bit better.

BE: How important will the mental aspect of this fight be given that it is your first title fight?

AP: It is big. Each fight I have had over the last few years has been a peak fight where it was the biggest fight of my career to that point. Now, I am 23-years-old and fighting for a world title and a chance to fight for the UFC belt. It is kind of overwhelming, but I know no matter what I do, I am going to have some nerves. I really just need to focus on doing what I did to get to this point and push myself a little further than that. I don’t want to overdo it or under do it.

BE: Are you going to try and enjoy the moment of reaching this milestone come fight night?

AP: I am going to love every moment. I am loving it now. This is what I have wanted to do with my life and this is all I have wanted to do. I am going to enjoy every moment and this is the last event ever in the WEC and I am going to be part of that. It will be great.

BE: With the nerves, how long does it take for your nerves to settle on fight night?

AP: I don’t think my nerves go away until I am lying in bed that night and when the fight is over, the interviews are done, and after the celebrating is over. It is one of those things you can’t explain. I love the feeling, but I just can’t explain it. You have to get up for these fights, but for me the nerves don’t go away until I am sleeping.

BE: How have you envisioned yourself winning this fight?

AP: Everyone asks me that and I honestly don’t know. This is one of those fights where it could end standing or it could end on the ground or even in the clinch. We are both good fighters, it is just going to come down to who makes the first mistake and how that guy capitalizes on that mistake. I will tell you this, no matter how the fight ends, my hand will be raised and that belt will be around my waist.

BE: Is it hard not to think about the feeling of becoming champion and just focus on the opponent or do you allow yourself to get lost in that moment?

AP: That has been my dream and that is what pushes me, so I think about it a lot. I am not trying to be overconfident or cocky, but my goal has always been to be champion, so I just have to be prepared to do anything and everything to make that happen. The next 25 minutes inside that cage decided the rest of my career. I think about that all the time.

BE: Would going a full 25 minutes in this fight prove something to you or do you not need to prove anything to yourself?

AP: I don’t think I need to go 25 minutes to finish this guy. It is going to be a war and we are both going to be looking to finish at all times. If it does go 25 minutes, that is just more time for me to prove to this guy that I am the better fighter. I think it would be a plus for me if it went 25 minutes because I can just put on more of a show. If I can finish this guy in 25 minutes, I should be able to finish him in 15 minutes.

BE: With the UFC merger starting in January, is it hard to not look forward to being a UFC fighter soon?

AP: It is not playing a big factor right now. Right now I am a WEC fighter and my next fight will be in the blue octagon and my hands will be wrapped in the WEC logo. What ever comes after that, I will prepare for it then.

BE: Why should fans that haven’t seen much of the WEC or seen you fight tune into this fight?

AP: If you haven’t seen me fight, every time I go into the cage I bring something new. I put on a show. It’s not that I am trying to put on a show for the fans, that is just my style. I have so many moves that the world hasn’t seen yet. Also, Ben Henderson is a great fighter and it is going to be two true warriors fighting in that cage. It is the last WEC event ever and we are going to put on a show.

BE: Alright Anthony, I appreciate your time and best of luck to you in your title fight.

AP: Thanks a lot. It will be a great fight.