UFC Live 5 Preview - Chris Lytle

There are very few professional fighters who have never been knocked unconscious in a Mixed Martial Arts fight, and Chris “Lights Out” Lytle’s lights have shone bright since the dawn of his MMA career.
As one of those fortunate, and skilled few that have avoided such defeat, Lytle has experienced a long MMA career so far, and looks as if he will continue for many years to come. At 36 years old, Lytle holds the record, in a two-way tie with Anderson Silva, for most UFC fight bonuses. “Lights Out” has one Knockout of the Night bonus, two Submission of the Night bonuses and five Fight of the Night bonuses to his credit.
Adding to his credibility as a top level fighter is the fact that he has also never been submitted. All of Lytle’s 18 career defeats have come by decision, save two. The two exceptions were TKO losses due to doctor stoppage because of cuts.

Lytle has faced the who’s who at welterweight, and was a semifinalist on The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback. Lytle has a pair of impressive wins over Matt Brown, and notched a decision victory over former UFC Welterweight Champion Matt Serra. His losses, really, are more impressive than his wins, and tell the story of who he is as a fighter.
“Lights Out” has faced top welterweights such as Robbie Lawler, Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes, Nick Diaz, Josh Koscheck and Thiago Alves. He suffered losses to all of them, but the only one that didn’t reach a hard-nosed decision was the Thiago Alves fight where the cage-side doctor stopped it just before the third round. He has been competitive in all of his fights, and a lot of them could have gone the other way with just one more flurry.
His last fight, against Brian Ebersole and his trademark “manscaped” chest hair arrow, he looked tired through the entire fight. It was a rather lackluster performance for the final two rounds. Ebersole tried a few cartwheel kicks, and none landed, but the UFC newcomer did make quite a fool of “Lights Out”. The fight consisted, mainly, of Lytle swinging at air, and Ebersole countering with one wildly painful strike after another.
In his upcoming fight with Dan Hardy, Lytle knows that he has suspect takedown defense, but he also knows that Hardy doesn’t want to risk trying to exploit that. Hardy is going to go for a win, but it has to be an exciting one. Hardy, who is on a three-fight skid, can’t win this fight in a boring lay-and-pray decision. It’s not his style anyway, but Dana White wouldn’t look so favorably upon a boring win for a fighter who really needs to rescue his career.
Hardy is going to be overly aggressive looking for the highlight reel knockout, so if Hardy leads with his familiar left hook, Lytle may be able to catch him with a counter right uppercut and put him to sleep. More than likely, Lytle will try to emulate Georges St-Pierre when he fought Hardy. If Hardy goes in for a power strike, Lytle can get him on his back and put his second-degree black belt skills to work and possibly end the fight with a submission. Hardy has such incredible willpower, as evidenced by the St-Pierre fight, that he probably wont submit until his arm rips off and Lytle starts beating him senseless with it. Lytle will use his technical grappling to keep Hardy’s back to the mat, and will stay busy enough to not get stood up and cruise to a unanimous decision and end Dan Hardy’s run with the UFC.