Any fighter will tell you that their next fight is the biggest fight of their career. For Nate ‘The Great’ Marquardt, it really is. He is heading into 122 to face off in the main event against Yushin Okami. On the line, one big victory and an even bigger promised middle weight title shot against the winner of the forthcoming Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort fight.

And Marquardt has never felt better and more poised to set his destiny.

“I feel great, 100%. I’m really confident, I’m in great shape, I have a great game plan and I’ve had a great camp,” Marquardt told Around the Octagon on Friday afternoon.

The fight, broadcasting on tape delay on Spike TV and originating from Oberhausen, Germany, marks a new chapter in the veteran’s career. While for many less experienced fighters, the change of fighting on a different continent (excluding the ever present Japanese circuit) would present a problem, but for Marquardt, it’s just a matter of adjusting his internal clock.

“The only thing I’ve done is try and adjust my schedule to get more in tune with Germany’s time,” Marquardt says.
But don’t expect patience from his rather loyal supporters here in the states, as Marquardt has no doubt they won’t have any.

“Oh, they’ll check out the results right away. They won’t wait for the tape delay.”

While every fighter will suggest that they are focused only on the next fight, and Marquardt is no exception, the chance that a title shot and a possible title reign could only be a few months away, is an attractive possibility that he thinks he is ready for.

“I’ve always wanted to be the champion. I understand and am ready for all the challenges and pressures that go with that. But I’ve had those kinds of thought challenges and pressures my entire career,” Marquardt says, sounding as calm as he if were discussing what winter weather in Colorado might do this season.

However, while his tone remains calm throughout, when he’s asked about which opponent he would rather face, should that title shot happen, it was easy to detect a twinge of desire related to avenging his loss at UFC 73.

“I would be more excited to see Anderson Silva retain the title,” he says, pausing before he pointing out, “But I’ll just be most excited to be fighting for the title. No matter what though, I’m focused on Okami right now.”

This isn’t the only exciting thing going on in Marquardt’s life though, having just unveiled the newest work on his legendary 1970 Chevelle.

“I’m more excited for the fight, but I’m very excited about my Chevelle. It’s something I wanted since I was a teenager. My family and my dad were really into old cars like that. My friends all like those muscle cars. When I was in high school, I found a 69’ Chevelle that I wanted that I thought was the coolest car ever. I couldn’t afford it at the time. So later when I could, I looked around and found that the70’ was the coolest ever.”

To get a better look at the car, click here.

While Marquardt is famous for his love of cars, somewhat less known is his faith The Christian fighter goes so far as to list Jesus Christ as his hero on his UFC biography, and is happy to make it clear just what he believes.

“I’m a Christian, and I believe he is the only true hero. He died for our sins.”

Like all mixed martial artists, he has to endure the constant question of how he balances that belief, in what many on the outside of the sport, see as a violent lifestyle.

“It depends on how you define violence. If you just say that any contact is violence, then football or soccer for that matter, are just as violent. It’s a sport, and I’m an athlete. I don’t fight because I hate my opponent; I fight because I love the sport.”

An eloquent and astute point as Marquardt embodies the heart and soul of Mixed Martial Arts. Refinement mixed with brutality, aggression sprinkled with finesse.

Marquardt And Colorado

When his birth in Wyoming is referenced, Marquardt is quick to correct.

“Just a quick point, I was born in Wyoming, but I’ve lived in Colorado pretty much my whole life. I’m from Colorado,” he says without any hint of annoyance, and in such a matter of fact way that anyone hearing it would understand that his body may have been born in one area, but his heart and soul is strictly Colorado native.

Nowhere is that more evident, then in his dedication to the people of Grudge Training Center.

“I get to train and coach with excellent people. They are great guys, we’re like a family, and they’re my brothers.”
Many of those brothers are facing battles themselves, some on ‘The Professionals’ card in Denver the night before UFC 122, some in their own UFC events coming up.

“Good luck to them and I’m confident they’ll all do great,” Marquardt said

They say that to judge a man, you have to speak to those that know him best. No one knows a fighter better than those that fight him, and no one fights, trains, and lives with Marquardt more than the team at Grudge Training Center. Around the Octagon asked various team members and coaching staff to give their opinions on Marquardt, the comments we got back shared a very common thread.

Tervor Wittman-Head Trainter at Grudge Training Center
“I have trained Nate ever since he fought Ivan in his first fight in the UFC. Nate was a vet coming into the UFC. With all the fights he has it is amazing to me that he keeps getting better. This guy is so amazing in every aspect of the game, and when he fights Yushin, I believe he will outclass him.”

Josh Ford-Grudge Pro Fight Team Member (fighting November 12 at The Professionals)
“Just from my point of view, watching Nate train is an unbelievable inspiration. He comes and trains hard every day, works on new stuff just like the young upcoming fighters, always has a smile when not sparring and brings a really positive vibe into the gym with him. Not to mention the fact that he is completely humble and doesn’t hold himself above anyone else at the gym.”

Tyrone Glover-Grudge Pro Fight Team Member (fighting November 12 at The Professionals)
“Nate really embodies why MMA in Colorado is really going places and why this is such a great place to train. He works hard, is always open to learning and improving, trains extremely smart, and always has a super positive attitude. Not to mention he is super accessible and humble. Sometimes I show up early to light weight sparring just so I can catch his last couple rounds. His method and attitude in the gym is really one to model your own after.”

Vinnie Lopez-Grudge Amateur Fight Team Member
“Training with Nate is an unbelievable advantage that we here at The Grudge Training Center enjoy. Nate has accomplished many things in his fight career and still today leads this team by example. His hard work is second to none at this gym. His determination to be the best spreads to each member of our team. He learns every day, and he teaches as well. He takes the time to correct and encourage the younger guys. All in all he’s an inspiration to our team and it’s an honor to train with him.”

Vinny Pallone-Grudge Amateur Fight Team Member (fighting November 12 at The Professionals)
“Training with someone like Nate is truly amazing. His work ethic is second to none and his humble attitude makes it all the more amazing. He is never too big time to help some of the other fighters out and will work with anyone in the room. Nate has earned the right to be a UFC Main event draw by years and years of putting his time in and winning tough fights against good opponents.”

Whatever a person’s relationship to, or perspective on Nate ‘The Great’ Marquardt, his talent, his heart and his dedication to the things and people he loves, cannot be denied. He has earned this place onto the main event, and will be representing his teammates, his faith and all of Colorado at UFC 122 in that main event on November 13 on Spike TV.

Only one man has ever defeated Brendan Schaub in his professional mixed martial arts career. In eight attempts, one man has been able to knock him off his pedestal. That one man is Roy Nelson.

So Schaub is chomping at the bit to jump into the fight his training partner, Shane Carwin, had to drop out of and face “The Ultimate Fighter Season 10” winner, right?

Wrong.

When Schaub played professional football for the Arena Football League’s Utah Blaze, if his team got beat, he didn’t sit around waiting for the opportunity to face that team again, he moved on trying to get to the championship game.

He takes the same approach in mixed martial arts. It’s not about exacting revenge on a fighter that was able to best him on one night; it’s about getting to the gold.

After defeating Gabriel Gonzaga by decision at UFC 121 – it was the first time in his career that a fight has gone outside of the first round – Schaub is more focused than ever on the UFC heavyweight championship.

But he knows that’s not the next fight for him. He still has a few more steps to take to be ready for the shot that he covets.

“If the UFC calls, I’m up for whatever they ask me to do… but I did say I think that next step up from Gonzaga would be a guy like Frank Mir or (Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic). For me, that’s kind of headed in the direction of getting closer to the title. I don’t know that fighting a guy like Roy does that. But whatever the UFC wants, I’m the guy,” he said on MMAWeekly Radio.

“As far as the redemption stuff, it doesn’t do it for me. I am a different fighter now. I truly believe in my heart 100 percent the outcome would be different between Roy and I. I would prefer a bigger name like Frank Mir or Cro Cop.”

And when Schaub mentions the names he does, it’s not because he thinks they are a cakewalk to the title. Just the opposite, he believes Frank Mir especially would present issues he’s never had to face before.

“I don’t know if you could say (Mir is) even a great match-up for me. I just want to fight the toughest guys and the biggest names and that’s what it’s about being in the UFC. Beating a guy like Gonzaga, what’s the next step? Gonzaga is as tough as they come. I don’t think he’s an easy fight for any one.

“I’m such a fan of Frank Mir and he poses such huge threats to me. I’m trying to get better and the only way to get better is knowing that I have to fight a guy like Frank Mir. That’s the reason (I said I wanted to fight him).

“Frank Mir is an absolute nightmare… stud jiu-jitsu guy and southpaw.”

Schaub doesn’t yet know if Mir or Cro Cop or whomever is going to be his next opponent, or when he’ll be called back into action. In a perfect world, after four bouts in 10 months, he says February or March of next year would be perfect timing for him to recoup.

But regardless of the when or the who, a gym rat at heart, Schaub will be ready when the UFC comes calling.

In some ways, Trevor Wittman is to a UFC pay-per-view as a great character actor is to a Hollywood blockbuster. Even if you don’t know his name, you recognize him as soon as you see him on screen.

That’s because the 36-year-old Wittman — trainer to fighters like Shane Carwin, Rashad Evans, Nate Marquardt, and several others– has a trademark. While other trainers and coaches are scowling their way to the cage, Wittman is the slightly goofy guy who’s grinning like a golden retriever with his head stuck out the car window.

“Brock [Lesnar] told me, ‘Man, you’ve got the most intimidating smile in the game,’ Wittman laughs. “You look across the cage at the other guys and you usually see that tough guy look. Me, I’m just happy to be there and excited to see my guy perform.”

Judging by looks alone, Wittman is easily the happiest man you’ll see on any UFC broadcast, and he takes no small measure of pride in it. Let other trainers glare from over their fighters’ shoulders. Wittman thinks he can accomplish just as much with an off-putting smile, even if the opposing fighters don’t always like it so much.

“I was in there with Rashad and we were fighting “Rampage,” [Jackson],” Wittman recalls. “I was smiling at him and “Rampage” gave me that little growl he does. He didn’t look at Rashad the whole time during the introductions. He just looked at me. I remember thinking to myself, keep the smile. Don’t break it. I felt like I was shaking trying to keep smiling.”

You’d never know it from his enthusiasm for his job, but when he first started out in the fight game this was the last place Wittman thought he’d end up. After a childhood spent aspiring to become a ninja, Wittman got involved in karate. Then one day he decided to check out a local boxing gym to see how his striking skills measured up.

“I got my ass kicked,” he says. “I remember walking home, crying, and I did that thing where, whenever a car would come close I’d straighten up and try to act like I wasn’t crying.”

A month later Wittman worked up the courage to go back, and before long boxing had become his life. He felt sure that he had a future as a professional fighter. Until, that is, he was diagnosed with hyperinflation of the lung – a consequence of years of asthma that could become serious if he was to get hit with the right body shot – and he was forced to retire.

“It was really hard to deal with. I was seeing a really good counselor at the time, and she helped me through it. She said, ‘What do you like to do?’ I said, ‘Boxing, but I can’t do it anymore.’”

The counselor suggested Wittman try his hand at something associated with boxing – managing or training, perhaps. Neither sounded all that appealing at first, but after he’d had his fill of feeling sorry for himself, he says, he finally went back to the gym to hold mitts for his fellow fighters.

“I honestly fell in love with it,” says Wittman. “It’s the mental game. I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot as a trainer just because of the mental game. I understand the mental game and I know how to talk to people.”

Part of understanding the mental side of fighting, according to Wittman, is knowing when to pump a guy up and when to break him down. Case in point, before a recent fight he started to notice a troubling attitude from Brendan Schaub, his up-and-coming UFC heavyweight. Schaub was talking disparagingly about his next opponent’s skills, and Wittman began to worry that he wasn’t approaching the bout with the proper mix of fear and aggression.

“He said something about the guy like, ‘Oh, he’s just a wrestler. I’m not worried about him.’ I didn’t like what I was hearing, so I told Shane [Carwin], ‘The next time you come in I want you to pick him up and slam him, then pick him up and slam him some more.’ After that training session, Brendan got up like a dog with his tail between his legs. I pulled him aside and told him, ‘This is you not respecting the sport of wrestling.’ From that point on, he had a different attitude.”

This, says Wittman, is part of why it’s so important to him to work with a select few fighters, rather than trying to maintain a large stable. He has to understand each man’s personality well enough that he knows when and how to bring him up or down.

“That’s really what my job is, is controlling that fire. Sometimes you’ve got to light a fire and sometimes you’ve got to put out a fire,” he says. “I want to have five world champions, not thirty gatekeepers. And if I were to take on thirty guys, that’s where I’d be, is training them at a gatekeeper level.”

The hardest part about his job, Wittman says, is “the continuous adrenaline shot.” With fighters on almost every major fight card, and sometimes even more than one on the same night, all the extreme emotional highs and lows take their toll.

For instance, at UFC 116 he got to smile his way up and down the aisle as Schaub scored a first-round knockout victory over Chris Tuchscherer. But later that night he had to watch as Carwin lost via second-round submission against Lesnar in a fight that seemed like it was almost over in the first round.

“I was happy as hell, relaxed, then boom, the fight totally turned,” Wittman says. “It’s such an up-and-down rollercoaster ride. It wears on you.”

But even with the emotional strain, the almost constant travel, and the time spent away from his family, Wittman admits that he can’t think of anything else he’d rather be doing right now.

For anyone who’s seen him grinning on fight night, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. When he hits the cage with his fighter on a Saturday night is about as happy as Wittman gets, and he isn’t ashamed to show it.

“It’s just that the moment has arrived,” he says. “We’ve trained so hard in training camp, that when we get to the fight that’s the moment where I’m the most confident. I love it.”

The UFC and Spike TV, in a news release earlier this week, confirmed that UFC 122: Marquardt vs. Okami would air via same day tape delay on Spike TV at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. Not only that, but the release also assured that the winner of the main event between Nate Marquardt and Yushin Okami was guaranteed a shot at Anderson Silva’s UFC middleweight championship.

Marquardt (30-9-2) is coming off of a first-round TKO victory against Rousimar Palhares on Sept. 15. With over 40 fights on his resume, Marquardt is one of the most experienced fighters in the UFC, and has notched wins against notable middleweights like Demian Maia and Martin Kampmann. His last four victories have come by way of knockout, setting the stage for fireworks on Nov. 13.

Marquardt was originally slated to fight Vitor Belfort in the main event, but when Chael Sonnen was pulled from a title rematch with Silva due to a positive drug test, Belfort was called upon to face Silva at UFC 126 on Super Bowl weekend. That bout will be Belfort’s first in nearly a year and a half after sitting on the sidelines due to injury.

Okami (25-5) has fought the best middleweights in the world throughout his lengthy career.  Since his debut in the Octagon in August 2006 at UFC 62, he was won nine of 11 bouts in the Octagon, including victories over Alan Belcher, Mike Swick, the late Evan Tanner, and, most recently, Mark Munoz this past August. In January of 2006, he defeated current UFC champ Anderson Silva at B.J. Penn’s Rumble On The Rock promotion in a controversial bout where Silva was disqualified for an illegal kick.  A victory over Marquardt could deliver a rematch with Silva, if the current champion is successful in defending against Belfort.

Both Marquardt and Okami sit high in the current MMA Top 10 rankings, easily making their individual cases for a shot at the UFC middleweight title.

Other UFC 122 bouts scheduled for the televised portion of the event include Jorge Rivera vs. Alessio Sakara, Andre Winner vs. Dennis Siver, Amir Sadollah vs. Peter Sobotta, and Goran Reljic vs. Krzysztof Soszynski.

Winner, Sadollah, and Soszynski, are all alumnus of “The Ultimate Fighter,” the popular reality series that also airs on Spike TV.