(This story appears in today’s edition of USA TODAY.)

After losing his first bid for the UFC lightweight title by the slimmest possible margin – literally, one point on one judge’s scorecard made the difference between victory and defeat – Gilbert Melendez decided to let himself be bitter for “about an hour.”

Then he let it go and moved on, or so he would have us believe.

“I really thought I won,” Melendez tells USA TODAY Sports and MMAjunkie about his split-decision loss to then-champion Benson Henderson in April 2013. “I think the majority of people who watched it thought I won. That helped, honestly.”

What it didn’t do was put the UFC lightweight title around his waist, a fact of which Melendez (22-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) is all too aware as he heads into his second shot at the belt against champ Anthony Pettis (17-2 MMA, 4-1 UFC) on Saturday at UFC 181 in Las Vegas (10 p.m. ET, pay-per-view).

At 32, Melendez isn’t kidding himself about what his future might hold if he comes up short once again. He came into the UFC after the company purchased rival promotion Strikeforce, where Melendez reigned as lightweight champ. But UFC gold is still the holy grail for most fighters, and Melendez knows that the path back to a title shot only gets longer and more difficult with every failed bid to capture the belt.

“My perspective now is, I know this will probably be my last chance at a title,” Melendez says. “If it’s not, it will at least be a couple years before I get another shot at it. I realize I’m in the late third quarter of my career, and this is my chance. This is my chance to not only perform, but to really just go for it.”

According to Melendez, that means no split decisions, preferably no judges at all, and definitely no careful, conservative game plans like the one he admits to employing against Henderson.

Then again, Melendez points out, that was the last fight on his contract, and his first in the UFC. There were some reasons to play it at least a little bit safe, especially since he felt like he was winning on the scorecards down the stretch. It wasn’t until he heard the judges’ scores read aloud that he realized he was wrong.

“Going through that experience then and knowing where I’m at now, those reasons aren’t there anymore,” Melendez says. “This time I’m going to go for it and get knocked out in the process, or else knock him out in the process.”

To hear Pettis tell it, it’s going to be the former, and the champ doesn’t expect it to take more than a round. While a bold prediction, it’s also not inconsistent with Pettis’ recent performances. He’s finished his past three opponents in the UFC, all in the first round, and all with significant help from his dangerous and destructive kicking game.

But when Melendez hears Pettis promising a first-round finish against him, he says, “I kind of have to laugh.”

“No one’s ever finished me, ever,” says Melendez, whose three career losses have all come via decision. The opponents whom Pettis has put away in the first, he adds, may have contributed to their own demise by allowing themselves to become awed by Pettis’ aggressive kicking game.

“That’s not going to be the case with me,” Melendez says. “I can’t wait to see his face at the end of the first round, when he knows he’s down one round to zero, and he realizes he’s in for a long night.”

For more on UFC 181, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.