CAUTION: Fireman Lytle will now attempt to handle a live Irish Hand Grenade

By Chuck Mindenhall

Marcus Davis, a boxer who's cool in the pocket and carries misfortune evenly in both hands. Davis, the southpaw. Chris Lytle, a boxer who's cool in the pocket that carries misfortune evenly in both hands, too. Lytle, the righty.

Try not to blink, here's one of those fights that promises to be an old-fashioned donnybrook—which is fitting since it's happening in Ireland on January 17 at the O2 Dublin for UFC 93.

"Not only do I think Marcus wants to punch me in the face, I'm pretty sure he's going to do it, you know what I mean'" says Lytle almost impatiently, adding that he feels like UFC matchmaker Joe Silva has tuned into his fight night druthers. "This is a dream matchup for both of us."

When you dream of getting hit in the face, dreams can come true in the UFC. The 34-year-old vet "Lights Out" Lytle has evolved in his MMA game, and not just in learning submission defenses and by proving the merits of wrist control. He has evolved into an all-or-nothing fighter, consequences be damned. He's an easy to like Midwesterner—a father of four who still holds his position as a full-time fireman at the Indianapolis Fire Department—with a basic philosophy: He'd rather lose spectacularly and entertain than win boringly and be forgotten.

So far he's managed to be both victorious and entertaining.

Ever since dropping a decision to Matt Hughes at UFC 68, four of Lytle's last six fights have resulted in fight card honors and bonuses, his latest a Fight of the Night decision against Paul Taylor at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. He has gone 4-2 in the Octagon since that epiphany to fight "lights out," his only losses coming at the hands of welterweight title contender Thiago Alves (which also earned Fight of the Night honors) and Josh Koscheck, who knew better than to stick his chin out there at UFC 86.

Though his bloody figure kept pursuing Koscheck like a hellish nightmare until the final bell, that fight shattered Lytle's optimism just a little bit.

"Unfortunately, I was really hoping for more of a stand up, knockdown drag-out fight," he says, remembering Koscheck's elbows that bloodied him on the ground. "I hoped he'd stand up, and I kept thinking, 'Chris, he ain't going to do that,' but I remained hopeful. People still saw at the end of the fight I was coming after him, still trying to take his head off."

And that is the prototypical image of Lytle, swinging for the fences. Heart is a fighter's greatest intangible—when execution of a game plan has come and gone, it's what's left. If Lytle's proven anything in his 50-plus MMA wars, it's that he's all heart and Adam's apple. His last fight with Paul Taylor, a close, but unanimous decision, was an example of his grit and determination, with just a hint of a cage vet's interest in pointsology.

"I've had enough fights now where I know what [the judges] are looking for a little bit more," he says, pointing out that he's been a victim of the scorecard more than once. "I was definitely going for the knockout, but when I couldn't get it I was thinking, 'okay, I've got to get a take down, to make sure I'm scoring.' I was trying to always be the aggressor, to push him, keep him against the fence the whole time, show that kind of range, just little things like that."

And that's where this fight with Marcus "The Irish Hand Grenade" Davis gets "interesting," to use Lytle's word. Even though there will be myriad exchanges, hands coiling and springing and the tense threat of a sudden ending, this fight promises to be more technical than the rock-em-sock-em robots that the uninitiated might think. Stand-up brawls, when the brawlers themselves have fought in over 80 professional MMA fights and many others boxing, are undoubtedly (and very subtly) nuanced.

"You've got a couple of guys who've been boxing this long, it's going to be harder [to land a knockout]," says Lytle (36-16-4) in a buoyant Midwestern accent. "When both guys are boxers, you're going to have to set things up a little bit more than usual, to focus on little fundamentals. People don't understand, Marcus is a southpaw."

He hesitates there for a moment, as if the implications of Davis being a lefty are totally obvious. Yeah'

"That means my left foot is going to have to be trying to get outside of his right foot the whole time," he says. "Whoever's getting that inside positioning should be winning the fight. It's all technical stuff like that, and boxing fans would understand a little bit more about it. I think it'll be the little stuff like that."

It gives Lytle pleasure to game plan for a fight like this one.

Davis will be the best kind of target, one that feints, slips and ducks better than most the fighters Lytle has seen of late. Forget about sprawl-and-brawl, it's part of Davis's hard-wiring to think like a boxer, same as with Lytle. Landing that big "POW punch" will not be easy for either fighter, but enough glancing blows, counter-jabs and well-timed combinations may set the table for something big. Maybe even something otherpugilistly, like a submission—this is MMA after all, and Lytle's BJJ is still strong. Davis, winner of 12 of his last 13 fights, has submitted more than half of those opponents. There are other layers, though this fight promises to yield to fighter preference.

Ireland' Fists' Tempers' The first big card of 2009' Lytle's hoping to hoist a pint of Guinness with Davis after what he envisions being a war.

"Without a doubt, the reason I wanted Marcus was because it has Fight of the Night written all over it," Lytle says. "But I'm really excited to do it there in Dublin. Great energy's going to be coming from there and as a fighter that's all you can ask. I've been asking for a stand-up boxer like this. We can get in there and mix it up and put on a great show for everybody. Those are the kind of fights I'm liking right now—where you get done and people are talking about it for a long time afterwards. That's what I want."

Given that this fight seems more like a collision course for two guys at the top of their games, somehow that doesn't seem like too much to ask.

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