UFC middleweight contender Nate Quarry talks about his win over Pete Sell at UFC Fight Night 11. Check out what he had to say about his performance after a 2-year layoff, his future plans and much more.
PC: Congratulations on your win over Pete Sell.
NQ: Thank you very much.
PC: How do you feel about your performance?
NQ: Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way the fight went. They say you learn more from a loss than a win, but in this fight, I was able to come away with a victory and still have plenty of tape to watch and a lot of good opportunities to learn.
PC: How are you physically?
NQ: I'm doing pretty good. I'm pretty lumped up. My right arm was trashed. We exchanged blows so much, my right hand was swollen, my elbow was swollen and my shoulder was aching; not to mention my face was a little beat on as well. Overall, I've just been kind of taking my time and letting my body heal. I did a lot of training preparing for this fight and now it's time to let my body go into recovery
PC: Sell was a tough guy to come off of a 2 year layoff against. How did you feel about him being your comeback opponent?
NQ: To be honest with you, this was a tougher fight than I was hoping for in my first fight back after such a long time off. I knew that Pete was going to be coming in very hungry. He was coming off of a couple of losses, but you could never question his heart. He is not one to ever give up. I knew he was training with The Ultimate Fighter TV show and really kind of made it his life to train for his fights. I knew that it was going to be a very tough fight. He has some of the best hands, I think, in the UFC middleweight class. He had a reach on me, which was surprising. It was just an all around tough matchup and I think he will continue to get better.
PC: With you being out of the Octagon for so long, what was the pre-fight feeling for you?
NQ: I was definitely excited about the whole situation and nervous coming into the fight. For me, this was a big opportunity and I wanted to see where my game was after the long layoff. It was a great opportunity for me and I was very excited and very hungry for the fight.
PC: You were hurt in the 2nd round and recovered pretty quickly. It seemed like you weren't taking no for an answer that night. How important was this fight for you?
NQ: Yeah, I don't know if people understand how hungry I was going into this fight. Literally, I got down to Vegas with all of the money I had left in the world in my pocket. For me, this wasn't an option of going in there and seeing what I got and gauging where I was. I needed to win this fight because if I don't, my family is going to go hungry. I have a little girl that I have to take care of and I can't look at her and say, "sorry, but we won't have food." I had to make it happen.
PC: You almost went a full 3 rounds in your comeback fight and you guys kept a frantic pace and your stamina seemed to hold up good. Who are some of the guys you trained with to prepare for this fight?
NQ: It was really interesting getting ready for this fight. I'm no longer with Team Quest; it's been that way for a couple of years now. I had a problem with the way their management was treating it's fighters. I thought it was in my best interest not to train there any longer and they pretty much felt the same way so it was a parting, but the good thing about it was it opened my eyes. One of my complaints at Quest was not having high level coaching in the area that you're training in. I went out and searched around here in the Portland area and found, right here in my own town, they have a gym with black belts in Jiu Jitsu under the Machado's. I hadn't trained just Jiu Jitsu in 5 years and now that I have Dean Lister in my weight class, I need to get my act together. I went out and met Tom Oberhue from Impact Jiu Jitsu in Oregon and then, through some connections, I met a boxing coach named Leonard Trigg who I've developed an incredible relationship with. He's one of the kindest and best guys I've ever worked with. He's a phenomenal resource as far as boxing goes and he, in turn, turned me onto a Muay Thai coach by the name of Daniel Burke. He's been doing only Muay Thai for 30 years. I will work until I fall down. You will always get 100% out of me. I also have Greg Thompson, who was one of my coaches out of Team Quest. He found out I was leaving and he didn't agree with the situation that Team Quest was choosing either, so he contacted me and offered his help for the fight and I can't imagine what the fight would be like without him. There were times when he was my only sparring partner. If you've been in that situation, you kind of feel sorry for the sparring partner because you can't throw as hard as you want to because they're getting ready for a fight and they're all amped up and going hard. He took lump after lump and was there the very next day to go at it again.
PC: You still appear to have your knockout power in your hands. At the time you stopped him, did you feel like you needed a knockout to win?
NQ: I look at every fight as I'm going through the rounds, and it's been a long time since I've gone into the 3rd round, but I go into every round as if I'm losing the fight. In my mind, you don't get the fan base or motivate people. People don't remember guys that eak out decisions. If I'm way ahead on the scorecards and I know it, I'm still going to look for the knockout.
PC: I know nerves will sometime cause fatigue. You also had a long layoff and a fast paced fight. Did you ever feel yourself gassing a little?
NQ: I maintained a very steady balance and I knew what I had to accomplish so nerves didn't get a hold of me too bad. It was a few times I could remember saying he landed a good shot and now I have to hit him back. I had to win that fight; he couldn't hurt me. Coming into the 3rd round, I looked across the ring and he wasn't jumping around like he had been previously. I said to myself, "he's tired now." He may not be what the normal person considers tired, but he had been 100% the whole fight and now he was at 90. I had to bring it and I had to finish that fight.
PC: What do you feel is the biggest difference in the middleweight division since you've been gone?
NQ: I would just say how much deeper every weight class has gotten actually. There are so many tough guys. Take Pete Sell for example. He's lost his last 3 fights and that is a guy who, any day, could be fighting for a title. He is that good and his heart is that big. You find that there are guys just as good as the champion in some of these divisions and any given day they could pull off a victory.
PC: Will you try and fight again this year?
NQ: It's really hard to tell. It's been such a journey trying to get through this fight that I'm content to kind of chill a little bit and really let my body recover. I went into the Sell fight trying to beat a head cold. I got a pretty good head cold a week and a half before the fight. The fact that the cold isn't going away just shows that my immune system is shot from training so hard. It really is time for me to rest and not train for a while. Otherwise I'll get into a nasty cycle where my body never does heal and I'll train at 90% or even less every time.
PC: Ed Herman sent you a shout out when I interviewed him and said how proud he was of you for your comeback. Do you keep in touch with those guys?
NQ: Oh yeah! Other than the management at Team Quest. That was one of the hardest things I had to do and I told them in our final meeting that I didn't want to go anywhere. I helped build that team. I was the original guy that wasn't on Olympic level wrestling at Team Quest. All I wanted was to spar with my training partners. Ed Herman and Chris Leben are now gone from Team Quest and so many other guys. My relationship with them, in my mind, is still rock solid. I don't get to see them as much as I like to because we're all so busy, but they've came out and trained with me.
PC: I'm glad to see you get it back together making money and exciting fights. Is there anything you would like to say in closing?
NQ: I'd like to send everyone to my website, natequarry.com. Go check that out. Please support the sponsors that have been supporting me. It's been a mean couple of years and without the sponsors that believed in me when no one else would, I would've had to, I don't know, sell myself on the corner to make ends meet. It was really a couple of tight years and I had people that wanted to be there. I'm talking about people that signed me to a long term contract before I got my back surgery. I would tell them I'm getting this surgery and they believed in me and the process. They were able to help me and support me and show everyone out there it doesn't matter what cards you're dealt, you can still play and win.
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