Nate Marquardt is a seven-time Middleweight King of Pancrase Champion and has amassed 25 wins in his MMA career. Currently fighting in the middleweight division for UFC, Nate will face Anderson Silva for the UFC Middleweight Championship title on July 7th at UFC 73: Stacked. Nate took some time to talk to us at BuddyTV about his career, the transition into UFC, and of course, his thoughts on his upcoming fight against Anderson Silva.

Check out the full interview transcript and the mp3 audio below:

This is Tom Michel from BuddyTV and I'm here with MMA fighter Nate Marquardt. Nate, thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got started fighting and the decisions that led for you to focus on mixed martial arts?

Basically I saw the sport first when I was 15 years old and I saw the UFC, and Royce Gracie was fighting back then, he fought when it was tournament style and he was the smaller guy in the tournament and I was pretty small growing up so I was intrigued right from the beginning. And I was always athletic and into sports and when I found this sport I just fell in love and started fighting and actually got a chance to go over and fight in Japan and that’s where I learned a lot of my mixed martial arts.

How did you get your break to fight? I know we see a lot of young guys coming up and they’re into mixed martial arts and different disciplines, what eventually led to your big break and actually getting a chance to fight in Japan?

I won a big tournament in Denver where, at that time, the winners were being picked to go fight in the UFC and the year that I fought the scouts from the UFC weren't there, so there was some scouts from Japan there and they asked me if I wanted to go fight in Japan.

Well UFC for a long time sort of survived in relative anonymity but recently it’s really exploded in terms of popularity, what do you think has made the UFC so popular?

Well first of all, I think it's the sport, mixed martial arts. I think it’s the most exciting sport in the world, it’s just raw competition. But definitely the UFC really did a lot of smart moves, they had it sanctioned by the athletic commissions, they changed the rules so, or they added rules and they added rounds like boxing for the fighter’s safety and eventually had it sanctioned by the athletic commissions. And then to boost the popularity they got it on reality TV and things like that, and they just did an excellent job promoting it.

Switching gears a little bit here, not much of the new fan base around mixed martial arts in the UFC may not know a lot about Nate Marquardt, but you certainly are a veteran of the sport. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about how the transition from Japan to the UFC in the US in particular has been for you?

Well sure, I mean I've been fighting professionally since 1999, that’s when I had my first pro fight. Since then, I think I've had around 35 fights and it’s taught me a lot. I have a lot of experience, I've learned a lot over the last, I think I’ve been training about 13 years, and fighting in Japan is different than fighting in the states but really as far as like the rules and things like that they weren't much different. I fought in a ring instead of a cage, there were no elbows allowed in Japan, but you could kick to the head on the ground over there, but other than that, really the rules are basically the same. And besides, I had always trained with guys that had fought in cages and stuff like that so it wasn't a big thing for me to change over.

Who would you say has had the biggest impact on you coming up as a mixed martial arts fighter, from a mentoring or coaching standpoint?

That’s really hard to say because I've had so many people that have influenced me throughout my career. I've really been blessed with the best coaches and the best teammates, and right now my trainers are a huge influence on me. My coaches Greg Jackson, Trevor Whitman, Mike Van Arsdale; they’re all world-class instructors and coaches and also Ricardo Murgel, Shane Pitts…probably too many really too mention.

You're a black belt under Greg Jackson, can you tell your fans what it takes to become a black belt?

Well yeah, actually I first got a black belt in Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, and that took me about 10 years to get. In Brazilian Jui-Jitsu you have to basically prove that you’re at the level before you get the black belt, you can’t just show the moves you have show that you know how to use them on someone at the same level. And then I started training with Greg, I think about 3 years ago, and he showed me a lot about mixed martial arts that I didn't know, a lot of mixed martial arts specific things. I've always trained in boxing, kick boxing and freestyle wrestling, and also in Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, and those are basically the three aspects that go into mixed martial arts. So if you’re good at all three of those aspects, you’re going to be a very good mixed martial artist but at the same time there are some techniques that are very specific for mixed martial arts like things you can do, different take downs you can do with someone with their back up against the cage. So you can practice takedowns in freestyle wrestling but you can't do the takedown on the cage and you can learn how to fight on the ground in Brazilian Jui-Jitsu, but in mixed martial arts you can practice the elbows and the strikes and things like that.

So you've had some really nice performances over the last couple years with wins over Joe Doerksen and Dean Lister and Ivan Salaverry. Clearly everyone's really excited about the upcoming Anderson Silva title fight, UFC 73 in Sacramento, how are you feeling coming into the fight?

I feel really good, I think I've trained just like I always have, I’ve always given 100 percent. I trained specifically for Anderson, I’m in great shape right now and I’m very confident that I’m going to win this fight.

How do you feel you're stacking up against Silva who had a very strong performance over Rick Franklin, how do you see this fight playing out?

I really think this fight is going to be a mixed war. It's going to be on the feet, it’s going to be in the clench, it’s going to be on the ground. But I really feel like I'm going to dominate in all areas.

Well, without revealing your game plan, can you give us an idea of what a daily routine for a fighter preparing for a title bout looks like?

Yeah, definitely. Every day is going to be different. When we train down here, our coaches kind of have a game plan set up for us. Maybe we've planned to run on Monday and then do kickboxing at night, and then mixed martial arts in the morning on Tuesday and then wrestling on Tuesday night. But at the same time, they've got to watch us and make sure that we're not being over trained or getting injured. But basically, I'd probably say it's twice a day, one and a half to two hours each training session, and once we start to get over trained or burnt out then the coaches back off and give us a day off. And it's really scientific, but at the same you just got to see how your body feels.

Are you going to be coming in close to weight or are you going to have to cut for the fight?

I've never had any kind of problems making the weight, especially at 85.

Can you tell your fans something about Nate Marquardt that they may not know, but should know? What do you do when you're not training or fighting?

Basically, I'm a family man. I have a wife and a seven and a half year old daughter, and my favorite thing to do is just to hang out with them. We go to the movies or play video games, ride bikes, go to the park. And when I'm not doing that I like hanging out with my buddies, my training partners and our friends. I also run a gym in Aurora, Colorado, so I like to teach there and hang out with the students there.

Do you allow your daughter to watch your fights?

Yeah, but she's never watched me fight live, I've always just let her watch the tape. If anything would happen I wouldn't want her to see it.

If there was one thing you could change about the UFC or the sport or the lifestyle, what would it be?

You know I think it’s going very well right now. If there was one thing I could change probably just to make it more mainstream. Right now, as far as like newspapers and on the news, when you watch the sports section on the news, its not covered in the sports section and I think that’s where it should be covered, but it’s headed there and I’m confident it will get there and the fighters are starting to get paid a lot better now, and that’s another part that I’d really like to see go up.

I think we've made some serious progress over the last couple years. You see it now featured in Sports Illustrated and on the homepage for Yahoo! Sports and things where you never historically saw mixed martial arts, it’s certainly come a long ways.

Yeah, that was a huge thing when it was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Yeah, good stuff. Well thanks again for your time today Nate, from all of us at BuddyTV we wish you nothing but good luck on July 7th in Sacramento, all of your fans are certainly looking for a big night from Nate Marquardt.

Alright cool, thank you very much.

(Interview conducted by Tom Michel)
(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.com)

Be sure to check out our upcoming interview with Anderson Silva and our other recent UFC 73 Interviews with Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans, Kenny Florian.