Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Roanoke fighter Joel Wyatt dominates Virginia Beach's Michael "Mr. Goodnight" Smith.

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Audio slideshow

• See the buildup to the big fight

Related story

• On Oct. 1, Extra featured amateur mixed martial arts fighter Joel Wyatt as he trained for the Ruckus in the Cage. Saturday, the 20-year-old apprentice plumber stepped into the chain-link cage with a U.S. Marine. Today's story follows Wyatt's battle and the aftermath.

Blood Sport

• Early no-holds-barred matches were so brutal Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, called it "human cock fighting."
• As the sport grew, rules were added and pro matches were moved from backwater towns to Las Vegas casinos.
• Ultimate Fighting Championship matches now regularly challenge traditional sports for viewers.
• UFC's success has spawned local fight gyms and amateur events like Ruckus in the Cage.
• By Joe Eaton

Joel Wyatt shuffled toward the center of the fighting cage, his gloves held chin high.

He was winning, or at least holding his own, until now.

Michael Smith, a Marine from Virginia Beach, sprang forward and threw a right cross direct to Wyatt’s nose.

Smith missed a second punch and then drove forward with four quick blasts to Wyatt’s face.

Blood trickled from Wyatt’s nose.

In less than four minutes, the main event at Saturday’s Ruckus in the Cage at the Roanoke Civic Center would be finished.

Before the blood flowed from Wyatt’s nose in the third round, the 20-year-old apprentice plumber from Roanoke had already lived a rough week.

Wyatt fights as a light-heavyweight, a class that tops out at 205 pounds. On the Monday before the fight, he weighed 219.

For five days, he ate eggs, bacon and biscuits from Famous Anthony’s before work. He starved through protein shakes at lunch and dinner.

After work, Wyatt sparred at Hybrid Martial Arts, a fighting gym on Williamson Road, and calculated pounds.

Then he drove to his parents’ Southeast Roanoke home, where he lives with his wife, Stephenie, and their 10-month-old daughter, Leah.

“I feel like a loser,” he said to Stephenie as they sat at their kitchen table days before the fight.

The family had just finished eating pepperoni pizza. Wyatt was hungry. He expected to have more at his age. Instead, he was scraping by.

Wyatt felt like a loser, until he talked about the fight.

Before Ruckus in the Cage, Wyatt had fought six times. He lost once. He ranked second in his amateur class.

After Ruckus, he planned to fight for money and work toward the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the National Football League of mixed martial arts.

He dreamed about a big check, paying off his parents’ bills, moving out, buying things.

First he had to drop weight.

On the morning of the fight, Wyatt weighed 205 on his home scale.

Worried the scale was off, he drove to the YMCA. In the locker room, he poked three holes through a white trash bag.

He put his head through one hole and his arms through the others. He covered the bag with two sweat shirts and spent the next half-hour in the steam room and the sauna.

He stood at the scale. His mouth was dry. He was hungry. He was just over 204.

The wait

Wyatt did not swallow a drop of water until after 3:30 p.m., when he stepped on the official scales at the civic center.

At weigh-in, Wyatt stood behind the man he would soon fight, an undefeated Marine staff sergeant with the nickname “Mr. Good Night.”

Wyatt stood pasty white and country strong with “God” “Mom” and “strength” tattooed in Chinese across his chest below “Leah” in a loopy cursive.

Mr. Good Night was built like a sprinter. Wyatt’s chin reached his shoulders.

At 6:30 p.m., Wyatt and Smith sat in separate locker rooms, each with 15 other fighters and their trainers.

For most of the next 3½ hours, Wyatt leaned forward on a metal folding chair and stared ahead at nothing.

One by one, other fighters warmed up, left the room and returned, some with trophies, one with a gash that covered his blond head in red.

Outside, a crowd the promoter said numbered 3,000 howled.

In the other locker room, the big Marine waited.

The bell

At 10 p.m., Wyatt walked into the 20-foot cage with his trainers, Dennis Hayes and Tim Rumfelt.

Across the cage, Smith kneeled and prayed, his hands in the chain-link fencing.

Hayes, a small man with a gymnast’s build and a cauliflowered ear, stood in front of Wyatt, their noses inches apart. He had trained Wyatt since the plumber was 15.

As Hayes talked into Wyatt’s face, the trainer bounced from foot to foot.

The bell rang.

Wyatt and Smith met in the middle, hit gloves, separated and came together.

Smith struck first with a hard left hook, but Wyatt threw the big man to the mat and climbed on top of him.

As Smith writhed on his back, Wyatt jabbed a volley of short rabbit punches to the Marine’s head.

For most of the first round, the two grappled on the ground, Wyatt on top, trading short punches.

Then with close to a minute to go in the round, Smith shoved off the fence and flipped Wyatt off his chest. The Marine wrestled past Wyatt’s legs and straddled his stomach.

As Smith aimed punches at Wyatt’s head, Wyatt sat up, hugged against the man’s chest to dodge the blows.

Wyatt flipped Smith over just before the bell.

At the start of the second round, Smith snapped a kick into Wyatt’s chin, but much of the rest of the round was slow.

As the round wore down, Wyatt was trapped under Smith and neither fighter did much. The crowd booed.

“Come on baby, get him off you,” yelled Stephenie Wyatt from two rows back.

Later, the plumber escaped and laid across Smith’s chest. He rained down a volley of shots on the Marine’s face before the bell.

The noose

Two cage girls in bikinis lapped the ring before the final round. Smith sucked air. Wyatt’s skin had turned a pinkish red.

After the bell, the Marine sprang forward and threw the right cross that struck Wyatt’s nose.

Wyatt had seen stars before. Taking shots and coming back for more had become his trademark.

But Smith’s punches landed solid, and Wyatt’s head snapped back.

The crowd yelled for Smith to finish him. Wyatt did not fall. He wrapped his arms around Smith’s back and the two men went down, Wyatt on top.

As they lay together on the floor of the cage, struggling for position, blood from Wyatt’s nose covered Smith’s abdomen.

For the next two minutes, Wyatt straddled the Marine’s midsection and pummeled his head as Smith tried to get away.

Then the big man flipped over onto his stomach with Wyatt still on top of him. Wyatt threw an arm around his neck.

The Marine rolled again onto his back. On the way over, Wyatt caught the Marine’s left arm and held it across the man’s neck.

Wyatt slipped his other arm under the man’s neck and grabbed Smith’s left wrist, forming a loop around his neck.

Wyatt tightened the noose.

When he pressed the Marine’s free arm to the mat with his knee, Smith had no hands to cover himself.

Over and over, Wyatt slammed the butt of his left hand into the Marine’s prone face.

Smith tapped his trapped arm against the mat.

It was over.

Wyatt jumped up and circled the cage, twirling his right hand in the air.

The professional

At 10:30 p.m., Wyatt lay on the locker room floor, a Ziploc bag of ice under his head.

His neck was rubbed red. A patchwork of red and purple lined his bent nose.

Wyatt stared into space.

Someone asked if his wife could come in. Wyatt nodded.

Stephenie Wyatt kneeled over her husband and whispered. Around them fighters buzzed with adrenaline, reliving the punches.

As he lay on the floor, Wyatt thought about his next fight, the money matches, sponsors, living large.

He looked at his wife and his trainers.

“I’m going to take care of everybody.”