(Nate comes on at the 17:38 mark)
New interview with Nate Marquardt over the weekend on Submission Radio
Some topics covered:
-His Gameplan for Brad Tavares
-What it's like mentally coming back from a KO loss (in reference to Brad's last fight against Boetsch)
-How he feels being back at Middleweight and if he got his explosiveness back
-If he got any funny looks in New Zealand when he beat James Te Huna
-What his gameplan was against Te Huna
-If he's ever been intimidated by an opponent
-If he'd fight Anderson in a rematch and what he learned from the first fight
-If he's still training at Tristar
Some Quotes:
On Brad Tavares strengths and weaknesses
“He’s a very tough fighter. He looks strong and he looks like he’s tough. Like he can take a punch and he can recover from bad positions. He’s a very good striker, he’s got good combinations, good kicks, good punches, good knees and he gets up well off the ground. Even in the fight where he fought Yoel Romero he was able to get up off the ground every single time. He was never held for very long really. So I was really surprised at that.”
On if he felt he has the explosiveness and strength back being back in Middleweight
“I guess when I was cutting weight it was hard to recover from my workouts. So gradually, over time, each workout I was able to put less and less explosion I guess into the workouts. And now being healthy and being able to eat, I’m able to get back to where I should be as far as explosiveness and work rate and things like that.”
On what’s it like mentally for Brad coming into a fight after being knocked out by Tim, and dealing with Knockout losses
“I’ve never really been knocked out before I fought Ellenberger and so you know I just kind of assumed it was just one of those things. Like I got caught or whatever. Then obviously when it happened the second time in a row with Hector (Lombard), I started to look at stuff a little differently. Like maybe something’s wrong here, because why did it happen again? And again it was like, it was one of those things where I can take big shots in sparring against guys that are heavier than me and just as fast and strong as those guys and be ok, and then suddenly in the fight I was getting knocked out. And so obviously for me that was the key factor for me to look at "oh, you know it’s possible that cutting the weight, and the dehydration, and your brain being dehydrated, and the fluid around your brain that protects your brain, some of that was missing or whatever’s off". So watching Brad, I’ve also seen Tim Boetsch do that to a few guys, so I’m sure that guy hits really hard. It’s one of those things. He’s kinda awkward, but at the same time hits really hard. So a lot of times when you see the punch coming, even if it’s really hard punch and it’s a natural movement, you can kind of absorb it. But when it comes at a weird angle, at a weird time and you're totally not ready for it, and it’s a hard punch, like I’m sure it affects you. But mentally for him, you know if he’s smart he's just kinda forgetting about it and saying "well that was just a fluke and whatever". But you never know. He could be questioning himself or whatever. But that’s kinda the nature of the game. You have to look at those kind of things and question (them) sometimes and sometimes you have to write them off as flukes.”
On if Nate was ever intimidated by his opponent
“I would say not intimidated. You know one time when I fought Anderson Silva, it was the first time I'd ever encountered this I would say, where like we’d seen each other all week or whatever and we we’re just good to each other. Then he was at the weigh ins, and then all of a sudden it’s time for us to just square up or to go face to face and suddenly, like he put his head like real aggressively like right on my head. And I remember, like it threw me off because I never encountered that, wasn't expecting it. And you know I could feel an adrenalin rush, I was angry and it definitely got in my head you know. Where I should have just said yeah whatever, like we're fighting tomorrow. There’s no reason to get pumped up right now.”
"In training that was properly a different story. Especially earlier in my career, because a lot of the time you're training with guys that are much better than you at something. So I remember the first time boxing with a world champion and I hadn't really done any boxing before. I was just doing my kickboxing sparring stuff, and all of a sudden I'm in there with a world champion boxer, and that' a little intimidating."
The Dangers of short rounds in amateur MMA
"If you have a five minute round, the guys are gonna pace themselves for a five minute round. And so they're not gonna be able to go as hard, or they're not gonna necessarily throw their strikes at a hundred percent. They might throw them at ninety percent, which is kind of what you wanna do anyway. But because of the short rounds it allows them to just go out there and swing wild and whatever for three minutes and then go recover and then do it again. I don't know, it just seems to me more dangerous."
