There are 10 seconds left to go. Nate Marquardt has worked his way to an irreversible points deficit after two deductions for inadvertent fouls. He’s running out of options, ideas and alternatives. He’s about to lose a fight he feels he’s winning. The fortunate, albeit hurting, Thales Leites yanks for a single leg takedown. Marquardt picks him up, spins him round and roars like an aging rockstar attempting to reach the climatic final note to a song he used to belt out oh-so-effortlessly. Summoning every ounce of strength in a gas tank ticking on empty, Marquardt plunges a spent Leites to the floor headfirst.
Piledriver? Not a piledriver? Whatever the name, it was a move symbolic of the new Nate Marquardt.
“That wasn’t a piledriver,” laughs Marquardt, 29-8-2 in his mixed martial arts career. “A piledriver would have been if I had thrown him into the ground straight down. When I picked him up, I threw his hips forwards so there wasn’t a direct angle downwards. I didn’t add any force to the fall into the ground. It looked like I was going for a piledriver, but I was just trying to throw him away from me and pop my hips up so I could basically sprawl out.
“I’d done it in training so I kind of knew it was a show-move. I always thought if I ever get the chance to use something like that (in a fight) the fans would like it. At the same time, though, it’s only worth doing if it’s going to be effective and practical in a fight. It’s a good thing for the fans to see, I guess.”
Technicalities aside, Marquardt’s quasi-piledriver acted only as a fitting exclamation mark to a torrid battle chock-full of ebb-and-flow action. Despite multiple cuts and a severe headache, Brazilian ace Leites walked away with the split-decision victory at UFC 85. Frustrated and docked two points for fouls, Marquardt wanted to celebrate. In a schoolyard scrap, he’d have had his hand raised.
“The first point (deduction) was a mistake on my part (knee to a downed Leites’ face) but the second one (punch to the back of the head) was a bit unfair,” explains the 29-year-old Marquardt. “I felt I should’ve finished him after that anyway, so the result was sort of my fault. I was pretty happy with my performance on the whole, though.”
A winner in everything but the record books, Marquardt hasn’t found himself picking up the pieces. He hasn’t had to endure a period of reflective solitude where he questions his very being. He hasn’t searched for answers. There’s been no rehabilitation schedule. Instead, Marquardt has been handed a September 6 slot at UFC 88 opposing rampaging Dane Martin Kampmann – currently the only man to hold a win over Nate’s tormentor, Leites.
“I feel like I won the Leites fight and, to be honest, my fight with Kampmann kind of shows that the UFC thinks I won the fight, too,” he says. “Kampmann’s pretty much undefeated and he’s beaten Thales before. In my opinion, Kampmann’s a step up from Leites and I’m happy to have the opportunity to face him.”
Normally in this scenario, all bets would be off. Kampmann beats Leites. Leites beats Marquardt. Marquardt fights Kampmann? You wouldn’t need to interrogate Joe Silva to fathom the continuation of that pattern. Yet such is the nature of Nate’s loss to Leites and such is the beauty of the sport of mixed martial arts - nothing’s ever a certainty.
Kampmann, 13-1 in his MMA career, is unbeaten in his last nine bouts and unblemished in his four-fight UFC tenure. The night Marquardt and Leites were fighting tooth-and-nail in London, Kampmann was dusting off Jorge Rivera with a clinical guillotine choke in the first round. A stark warning to future foe Marquardt.
“This is one of the fights we asked for,” says Marquardt excitedly. “Kampmann defeated Leites, and a win over him would kind of put the stamp on the fight I had with Leites. I asked for a rematch with Leites and Thales didn’t want to fight me. You saw the fight, right? You can understand why Thales didn’t want to go there again. He ran away with a win based on a technicality and even then it was only a split-decision. I pretty much beat the crap out of him the whole fight.
“The loss doesn’t matter to me now. Kampmann’s undefeated – apart from a cuts loss – and I’m all about taking on the best guys out there. Nobody’s really shown a way to beat him yet.”
Possessing a ‘Terminator’-like aura when stepping into the Octagon, the Las Vegas-based Kampmann, at only 26, is considered one of the leading lights of the middleweight division. He’s a mystery man. An enigma. No mortal has yet to figure a way round his precise strikes and slick ground game.
Nevertheless, Marquardt, a man as well-versed as anyone in MMA, fancies his chances – believing Kampmann’s unbeatable sheen is a result of competition faced rather than any invincibility factor.
“I feel like I’m better than him in every area,” Nate admits. “I feel like my standup’s better, my wrestling’s better and my ground game is definitely very well-rounded and tough to deal with. When it comes to the fight I’m going to apply everything I know to beat him. I think I have more tools than him.
“I’d say he’s more well-rounded and has better technique in his stand-up than Leites, but I don’t think he’ll be as strong or perhaps as dangerous on the ground as Thales. They’re two different kind of fighters. Kampmann’s very technical and a pretty good finisher, but I don’t feel he’s ever been in with a fighter like me.”
That much appears to be true. After all, Marquardt, in a career-spanning nearly 40 MMA contests, has duked it out with a who’s who of the mixed martial arts landscape. He’s already been where Kampmann aspires to reach. He’s already partied in the Promised Land of a UFC title shot.
That night in July 2007, Marquardt failed in his attempt to snatch Anderson Silva’s middleweight title. Stopped in the first round following a brave and promising early assault, Nate ultimately walked away with his dreams crushed.
Yet if Kampmann assumes he’s being fed a shop-worn fighter with two defeats in his last three, he’s sorely mistaken.
“There’s no added pressure for me,” states Marquardt adamantly. “Ever since I fought for the title my mentality has been a little bit different. I’m stronger mentally now and don’t look to put any pressure on myself to perform. I just go out there and do it now. I go into every fight just expecting to do my best. As long as I go out and do my best I’m going to win each and every time. I don’t have that, ‘oh, this is my last fight’ kind of pressure. I don’t do that to myself.”
The true, genuine Nate ‘The Great’ Marquardt is undefeated in his MMA career. The other guy – the one who lost to Silva and seven others – is a thing of the past. Extinct. He’s now a new man – a new fighter – thanks, in part, to a bald-headed Brazilian with a penchant for vicious striking.
“Silva didn’t fight Nate ‘The Great’ that night,” he explains. “He fought me in more of a sparring mode. Now when I go out there I’m trying to hurt the opponent and take him out. Back then I was trying to win the fight but not looking to over commit. I was holding back. I’m never going to hold back again. To be a great fighter you have to improve after your defeats. If you can’t improve from a loss, you’re only going one way and that’s downhill.”
Like Leites in June, perhaps? Have you seen this ‘new’ Marquardt? Sparring mode? Man, he recklessly dumps guys on their heads when the clock’s running down. The old version never contemplated those kinds of shenanigans.
“I know I can beat Silva,” says Marquardt. “I hope he hangs onto that belt so I can get up there and take it from him. I see holes in his game and I want to be the one to expose them. I don’t want someone getting there first and taking all the credit.
“I respect him, of course. He’s a great fighter and a great finisher. When he sees his opportunity he chases after it and takes it. That’s what I’m learning to do now. It’s taken a loss to Silva to teach me that kind of stuff.”
Martin Kampmann has been warned. When the new Nate Marquardt sees an opportunity he’s going to take it - whether that be a punch, a kick, a takedown, a submission attempt or, shock, horror, a ‘piledriver’. Well, something mildly resembling one anyway.
“We’ll see if Kampmann decides to shoot on a single leg,” laughs Marquardt devilishly.
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