{"id":102318,"date":"2014-06-23T10:58:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T17:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=102318"},"modified":"2022-02-06T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T18:00:15","slug":"nate-marquardt-god-wanted-me-to-fight-at-middleweight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/nate-marquardt-god-wanted-me-to-fight-at-middleweight\/","title":{"rendered":"Nate Marquardt: God Wanted Me To Fight At Middleweight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/nate-marquardt-not-woodley-set-to-face-jake-ellenberger-at-ufc-158-ufc-news\/marquardt-nerd-7\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-30386\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/marquardt-nerd1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"marquardt-nerd\" width=\"390\" height=\"270\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-30386\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>UFC Fight Night 43 headliner Nate Marquardt joined <a href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.com\/2014\/06\/ufc-fight-night-43s-nate-marquardt-god-wanted-me-to-return-to-middleweight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MMAJunkie<\/a> to talk about his upcoming fight with James Te Huna this weekend, his future in the middleweight division, and why God wanted him to fight at that weight.  Check out the interview below:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI just feel like that\u2019s what God wanted me to do, was to move back up to middleweight,\u201d Marquardt told MMAjunkie. \u201cI\u2019d never lost two fights in a row before, so it was actually more after the second one that I was actually kind of questioning myself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I lost the third fight, I was disappointed. But at the same time, I didn\u2019t have the same thoughts that I did after the Ellenberger fight. I felt like I understood then why I was losing, and it was because I was fighting at 170. So I made the move.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhen I initially cut down to 170, I did feel very good and that was basically attributed to the fact I was eating clean. I was walking around a little bit lighter, so my speed went up, my strength stayed up and my explosive power was still there,\u201d Marquardt said. \u201cOver the time of two years at welterweight, the cut just took its toll on me. The dehydration around the fight was affecting my chin. Your ability to take a punch when you\u2019re dehydrated is a lot lower.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cFor my workouts, I was having to eat less calories and different types of food than what I necessarily wanted to eat and what I needed to eat,\u201d Marquardt said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t able to put the same effort into my workouts, so over time it just made me weaker. My training camps, compared to when I was fighting at 185, were a lot worse because I was not able to perform in my camps because of my diet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you don\u2019t recover from your workout, then the next workout you have you\u2019re a bit slower and you\u2019re not able to lift as much weight. Then suddenly, your whole camp turns out like that. How you train is how you fight. I also just lost strength over time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One of the difficulties Marquardt has had to deal with is the challenge of eating right.  <\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThat\u2019s definitely been a roundabout way to learn what\u2019s going to be better for me at middleweight,\u201d Marquardt said, \u201cI\u2019m walking around lighter than when I was initially fighting at 185. I still feel that quickness and that my cardio has gone up just because I\u2019m walking around lighter. Now I\u2019m able to completely recover from my workouts. I work out very hard, and then I can recover and work out hard again the next workout and not feel drained.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI had told them that I wanted to move back to middleweight, but I didn\u2019t have any expectations on who I would be fighting,\u201d Marquardt said. \u201cJames Te Huna, for sure, I had heard of him and even seen him, but he wasn\u2019t somebody I paid much attention to being from the light heavyweight division. It\u2019s a good opportunity. I think it\u2019s an exciting matchup.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC Fight Night 43 headliner Nate Marquardt joined MMAJunkie to talk about his upcoming fight with James Te Huna this weekend, his future in the middleweight division, and why God wanted him to fight at that weight. Check out the interview below: \u201cI just feel like that\u2019s what God wanted me to do, was to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2616,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2681],"tags":[9,8608,438,618,11,665,15],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nate Marquardt: God Wanted Me To Fight At Middleweight | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/nate-marquardt-god-wanted-me-to-fight-at-middleweight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nate Marquardt: God Wanted Me To Fight At Middleweight | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UFC Fight Night 43 headliner Nate Marquardt joined MMAJunkie to talk about his upcoming fight with James Te Huna this weekend, his future in the middleweight division, and why God wanted him to fight at that weight. 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