It has been less than 48 hours since Charlie Brenneman mounted one of the biggest upsets of the year against Rick Story. Of course, Brenneman was a late replacement for Nate Marquardt, who was scratched from the bout minutes before weigh-ins for the event.
Initially, the only information given about Marquardt’s scratch was that he had failed a pre-fight medical exam. On Tuesday, Nate Marquardt and his manager, Lex McMahon, joined Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour to shed some light on the entire situation.
During the interview, Marquardt and his manager made a focused attempt to make the chronology of the circumstances very clear. First, Marquardt began with explaining the medical condition to led to this whole fiasco.
Earlier in his career, Marquart was beginning to feel sluggish and irritable.
“I felt like I was overtraining when that wasn’t the case,” Marquardt said.
At that point, Marquardt went to his primary care physician to figure out what the problem was. Marquardt’s doctor diagnosed him with low testosterone and prescribed him for a testosterone treatment.
In addition to improving his testosterone levels, Marquardt’s family life also benefited from his testosterone treatments.
“It possibly saved my marriage,” Marquardt said. “I was so moody, my wife didn’t want to be around me.”
Then, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB) questioned Marquardt’s treatment prior to his fight with Dan Miller at UFC 128. The NJSACB allowed Marquardt to fight, but required him to see an endocrinologist after the fight to prove his need for the testosterone treatment.
Marquardt stopped treatment for 10 weeks after the Dan Miller fight, so the endocrinologist could accurately test him to verify that he needed the treatment. When the test results came back, it was confirmed that Marquardt needed the treatments.
“The endocrinologist told me it could be a mono-like virus causing this,” Marquardt said.
So, Marquardt continued to take the treatment in the months leading up to his scheduled UFC Live on Versus 4 appearance. However, Marquardt received a scare less than one month before his fight with Story.
“Three weeks out, I got recommendation for new treatment,” Marquardt said. “My doctor said it was so close to my fight that it wouldn’t make me feel better in time for my fight unless I did a more aggressive treatment.”
Marquardt began the new treatment, which included testosterone injections. Then, a week later, Marquardt was faced with an even bigger problem.
“Two weeks before the fight, I took a blood test,” Marquardt said. “The test came back high. At that point, my doctor said I need to go off treatment.”
“As soon as Nate was recommended to come of treatment, he did come off treatment,” McMahon said.
As Marquardt stopped his treatments, his testosterone levels began to drop. However, they didn’t drop fast enough.
“The week of the fight, I requested several tests,” Marquardt said. “Each showed the levels were going down. I took a test on weigh-in day and it was still above the range that the athletic commission was going to let me fight, but in close proximity. At that point, I was told that I wasn’t going to get to fight.”
However, Marquardt and his management believe cutting weight may have made a significant impact on his inability to meet the requirements explained to him by the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission.
“I believe the weight cut screwed up my number,” Marquardt said. I asked the doctor, ‘Can my concentration be higher because I’m dehydrated?’ The doctor said, ‘Yes, because your blood is thicker.’ I took a test the day after weigh-ins and I was well within the acceptable range. I did another test yesterday and it had gone down even more so. The commission said, ‘At this point, it looks like I’ve met all requirements for the suspension to be lifted.’”
After it was made clear that Marquardt was not going to be able to fight, UFC President Dana White decided to release Marquardt from the organization. It was a decision that was made swiftly and without much explanation, as Marquardt’s manager found out the same way everyone else did, through White’s Twitter account.
Marquardt did have one very brief interaction with White after the new broke, though.
“[White] said, ‘How could you let this happen,’” Marquardt said. “I knew from talking to him that this was very bad.”
Although Marquardt took all the necessary steps in communication with the UFC and the athletic commission, he made it clear that he was responsible for the situation he put himself in.
“I knew I had to be within range,” Marquardt said. “Obviously, I should have requested testing earlier. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I made. I messed up. I was the main event. All the responsibility is on me at that point.”
Sean Smith is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA. For the latest insight and updates on everything MMA, you can follow Sean on Twitter here.
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