Nate Marquardt seems like a regular guy. And he is, even at work, as an ultimate fighter.
Away from the ring, he spends much of his free time with his 7-year-old daughter, Emmalie, or plays Taboo with his wife, Tessa, and friends. Come Sunday, he can be found sitting in a pew at Calvary Chapel in Aurora.
In the ring, Marquardt isn’t flashy, not like current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, who is known for his knockout ability. But flash doesn’t make a fighter. Dedication does, and that’s why Marquardt is challenging Silva for the middleweight title Saturday night in Sacramento.
Marquardt proves it doesn’t take a maniac to throw a right cross or force someone to tap out. To him, MMA is a sport, with skills to perfect and a game plan to carry out.
“When I get ready for a fight, I’m mentally preparing myself like I would for any other sport,” Marquardt said. “I try to stay focused and believe in what I can do.”
His soft-spoken demeanor can surprise those who haven’t seen him fight.
“When I met him, I didn’t realize the type of fighter he was,” said Trevor Wittman, Marquardt’s boxing and kickboxing coach. “In my mind, he was just your typical Brazilian jiujitsu trainer.”
Reasonable assumption. Marquardt does own a gym, High Altitude Martial Arts in Aurora.
But once Wittman saw tapes of Marquardt in the ring, the coach never questioned Marquardt’s place alongside Denver fighters such as light heavyweight Mike Nickels, 35, and welterweight Alvin Robinson, 24, both of whom are on the Sacramento card.
Marquardt is more accomplished than either of them. He holds a 28-6-1 MMA record and is a seven-time King of Pancrase, a Japanese fighting organization. Not bad for one of the most laid-back fighters Wittman has met.
Just because Marquardt is a nice guy doesn’t mean he isn’t competitive. The closer the calendar gets to fight day, the more intense he gets.
“Normally he’s really personable and bubbly,” Tessa said. “But once he gets close to the fight, he’s quiet, focused.”
Mainly because Marquardt doesn’t like to lose – at anything. Like the time he and three teammates from Jackson’s Fight Team in Albuquerque were in Los Angeles and found an arcade boxing game that judges the force of a punch. One dollar, one punch.
Every time someone put up a new high score, one of the other three had to beat it. They spent about $50 before finally finding a winner. And with four world-class fighters taking swings, who came away with the title?
“I did,” Marquardt said. “It’s a pretty accurate judge of how hard you hit.”
