Wyatt (with wife Stephenie, 19, in the background) catches his breath after a cardio workout session.

How does it feel when a 200-pound fighter balls up his fist, winds up, hurls a right cross and connects, solid, on your left cheek?

Imagine you are in a room when the power goes haywire.

The lights flicker. You begin to lose consciousness.

If you are lucky, the lights snap back on.

After the fight you find out your nose is broken.

That's how Roanoke fighter Joel Wyatt describes it. And five days a week, the 20-year-old plumber trains for that punch.

He hopes to be on the throwing side of the fist.

On Saturday, Wyatt will fight in the main event at Ruckus in the Cage, a battle-to-submission brawl staged in a 20-foot octagon cage at the Roanoke Civic Center.

Wyatt and his opponent will punch, throw, wrestle and choke each other until one of them is knocked out, passes out or gives up.

It will be Wyatt's sixth fight and another step toward his dream of becoming a professional fighter.

An undefeated 33-year-old, 205-pound U.S. Marine from Virginia Beach named Michael Smith stands in his way.

Blood sport

Mixed martial arts, the style of fighting in Ruckus in the Cage, took off in the mid-1990s with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, tournaments that pitted fighters of different martial arts styles against one another.

In the early days, the events were held in backwater towns. Brazilian jujitsu, a ground fighting technique heavy on choke holds and arm bars, dominated.

In time, fighters began training in several fighting styles. Today, most fighters at the competitions are proficient in Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, wrestling, kickboxing and other martial arts.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is now held in Las Vegas casinos and is broadcast on pay-per-view.

The fights, along with reality television show "Ultimate Fighter" on Spike TV, have spawned gyms across the country where amateurs train.

Fights like Ruckus in the Cage are venues where hopefuls can prove themselves.

Fight when you have to

Joel Wyatt lives in his parents' Southwest Roanoke home with his 19-year-old wife, Stephenie, and his 9-month-old daughter, Leah.

He is quiet and shy, with a handshake as soft as a child's -- the last guy you would imagine fighting for fun.

Wyatt is an apprentice plumber, good training for a fighter, he said as he sat in his parents' living room on a recent afternoon.

Plumbers spend their days lugging pipe, working with their hands above their heads, drilling into pipe, fixing leaks. They come home with their shoulders burning.

Wyatt grew up lower middle-class. Fighting is his way out, he said.

For now, Wyatt does not get paid for fighting. He dreams about professional matches, paying off his family's debt, about living big.

"I want to make it where money is not a worry," he said.

Stephenie Wyatt watches her husband fight from the audience, screaming and crying every time he gets hit. Asked what she thinks about it, she said she wants her husband to do what makes him happy.

"He loves it. I love him. And he hasn't gotten seriously hurt," she said.

As Joel Wyatt talked about fighting, his father, Jesse, sat in the kitchen, listening to Top 40 radio. He doesn't like his son's hobby. He doesn't go to the matches.

Jesse Wyatt fought in Vietnam. He has seen enough violence in his life. He thinks fighting for sport is wrong.

"I was taught to fight when I have to, not when I want to," he said.

But he said that's a lesson his son has to learn by himself. Joel is over 18. He can't stop him from fighting. But he refuses to watch.

Joel Wyatt said he doesn't fight to hurt people. After each win, he falls to his knees in front of his opponent and presses his forehead to the mat in a sign of respect.

"He'll see when the check comes in the mail," Joel Wyatt said about his father.

The deep end

Wyatt is a buffalo with paste-white skin, a buzz cut and ankles the size of ham hocks. His muscles are buried under meat.

He is country boy strong, "retarded strong" as the guys call it at Hybrid Martial Arts, the Williamson Road gym where Wyatt trains.

Wyatt wandered into Hybrid for the first time at 15. He didn't have money for Judo classes. Dennis Hayes, who owns the gym, let him scrub the mats and clean the toilet for his lessons.

Five years later, Wyatt has the door key and is skilled in Judo, Jiu-Jitsu and Thai boxing.

In 2004, Wyatt fought his first mixed-martial arts match in Virginia Beach. He nearly lost.

Right after the opening bell rang, Wyatt took his opponent to the mat and pulled him right onto his chest. The man sat on Wyatt and punched him in the face.

But Wyatt slipped out of his mount and soon was on the man's chest, throwing his fists into the man's face. The referee stopped the fight.

Over the next 10 months, Wyatt fought four times, once in Richmond and three times in Fredericksburg. He won three times and lost one decision.

Wyatt's last fight was in July in Danville. His opponent came out street fighting and knocked Wyatt down twice.

The blows bloodied his face and snapped his nose. He saw "perfect five-pointed stars" that trickled down like fireworks.

But he didn't stay on the mat. The punches keep raining down.

Then, suddenly, the man's hands started coming in slower. He had swung himself out. "Shot his wad," Wyatt said.

As the man gasped for breath, Wyatt tackled him to the mat, straddled his back, slipped a sweaty arm around his throat and squeezed his carotid artery, clamping off the oxygen flow to his brain.

The man gave up.

That is Wyatt's bread and butter, putting a guy to the mat, locking him up, choking him or twisting a joint a way it wasn't meant to twist.

He calls it taking his opponent out to the deep end and dropping him off.

Rage

Two weeks before Ruckus in the Cage, Wyatt danced on the mat at the gym, trading punches with Rodney Delp, one of two other men at Hybrid who will fight at Ruckus in the Cage.

Rage Against the Machine boomed through the sound system. Delp, a 6-foot wiry scrapper, used his reach and speed to tag Wyatt.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

"Joel, keep your head moving. You've got to slip better," Hayes yelled from the edge of the mat.

Pop! Pop!

Delp continued to pick Wyatt apart, landing practice punches Wyatt blinked off.

When Wyatt fights, his baby blue eyes go catatonic. He stares at his opponent.

Delp would later describe the stare this way: "It takes away your will. He has no emotion. It doesn't matter if you hit him."

But Delp is 165 pounds. The Marine Wyatt will fight is 205 pounds. He is 3 inches taller than Wyatt. It will matter if he gets hit.

Near the end of the five-minute practice round, Wyatt threw a lumbering combination, dove inside and drove his shoulder into the thin man's chest. He stopped short of slamming him to the mat.

Mr. Good Night

Wyatt thinks he's ready for the fight. In the gym, he's peaking, throwing down all comers.

But at the gym, the fighter knows his sparring partners. He knows who is strong, who is a striker, who is a grappler.

But he knows little about Michael Smith, the big Marine from Virginia Beach who calls himself Mr. Good Night.

Wyatt has watched Smith introduce himself on a video posted on the Ruckus in the Cage Web site.

He knows the big man's voice and his face. He knows he is undefeated in four fights.

But he doesn't know if Smith can hit.

He doesn't know how hard.

Coming Oct. 11: The fight and its aftermath.

On the Net:

ufc.com

ruckusinthecage.com