It was announced a few months ago that long-time middleweight contender Nate “The Great” Marquardt would be dropping down to the welterweight division.
On June 18th, at UFC on Versus 4, Nate will be making his long-awaited welterweight debut against rising contender Rick Story.
The fight is a great matchup for Marquardt. Story is a very game opponent, but he doesn’t possess the well-rounded skill set that Nate does. Assuming the weight cut doesn’t hurt him too much, Nate has a very good chance of winning this fight.
The question is: After fighting for more than ten years at middleweight, why is Nate Marquardt moving to the welterweight division now?
Some have speculated that the move may have been made out of desperation, and I can’t help but agree, to a certain extent.
Nate is 32, which isn’t ancient by any means, but he probably only has three or four relevant years left in the sport.
Marquardt has accomplished much in his storied MMA career, but one thing has alluded him: a UFC championship.
Capturing a UFC belt is something Nate would like to accomplish before he retires and, realistically, he would have little chance of doing it at middleweight.
Marquardt has fought for the middleweight title before, against current champion Anderson Silva, and come up short. It’s always difficult to market title shot rematches when the champion has already handily beat the challenger. Given that Nate is a lackluster 2-2 in his last four fights at middleweight, a rematch with Anderson Silva would be particularly difficult to market.
Nate knows all these things, and he also knows that the UFC has little interest in making title fights that will be difficult to market.
So, the move to welterweight is a calculated one for Nate.
Georges St-Pierre has been sitting atop the welterweight division for quite some time now and the UFC is having a really tough time finding him viable opponents.
This presents Marquardt with a very interesting opportunity. Fans are already familiar with him as a top five contender at middleweight and he will naturally be viewed as more dangerous contender at welterweight, due to his increased size advantage.
With the shortage of contenders in the division and Nate being a marketable opponent, a win over Story would leave Marquardt no more than two fights away from a title shot.
Desperation might be a bit to extreme a term to describe the motivation behind Marquardt’s move to 170 lbs, but the sentiment is right. Nate knows his time left in this sport is limited and that his best chance for a title shot lies in the welterweight division.
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