Marcus Davis was a professional boxer in Boston when he saw the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event. It piqued his curiosity. But he spent a decade making the same journey that James Toney is trying to make in a few months.

A few days before his UFC 118 fight with Nate Diaz, Davis spoke to Fighting Stances about it:

When I saw the first UFC, I didn't think it was real. I thought it was fixed. I opened up the Yellow Pages and started looking for the name Gracie. I started calling all these places, and they're like, $200 an hour. Then I found one place that said Rickson Gracie. I didn't even know who Rickson was. I didn't know he was the best of the best.

So I called, and he said, "I'll do a private for $100 for an hour." So I went down, and I got terrified. I felt like I was in the ocean with sharks and I couldn't swim.

After that, I said, "This is real stuff."

I didn't follow up on it. I was a professional boxer, I was under contract, I wasn't even supposed to be down there doing that.

When I got done boxing, I started playing with the idea, "Hey, these guys in MMA, their hands are so horrible, I'm going to jump in."

My first amateur fights I had, I knocked everybody out. I never had to worry about hitting the ground. I turned pro, knocked out the first couple of guys I fought, still was just a boxer.

(Then I fought) Thiago Alves. I'd never been kicked in the leg. We fought a vicious fight -- I wound up getting six staples in my head and both my eyes sewed up.

After that, I wanted to learn how to check a leg kick. I lost a split decision, I went in the back room and screaming hard, I sat down, pulled on my pants, went to get up and couldn't get up. My legs were just blistered.

Davis is known as "The Irish Hand Grenade," and he counts fighting in Dublin as the highlight of his career to date. But after several trips overseas, mostly to fight European fighters, he's thrilled to be the hometown guy for a change.

"Normally, I'm in some foreign country to me, fighting in some kid's backyard," Davis says. "That adds more pressure. Walking around trying to find food you can eat when you're trying to make weight, that's a lot of pressure, a lot of stress."