Nate "The Great" Marquardt faces Demian Maia in a Middleweight Matchup on the main card of UFC 102: Couture vs Nogueira happening this Saturday, August 29th at Portland's Rose Garden Arena. NW Fightscene's Steve "Spaniard" Valentine spoke with Nate pre-fight about the matchup...

NW Fightscene: Nate, you're fighting an unbelievable Jiu-jitsu guy, new age jiu-jitsu... do you see that as a problem?. How do you feel you'll be able to keep it on the feet and get the knockout?
Nate Marquardt: Well, I don't see it as a problem. That's his style and honestly I train with great grapplers who are like you said, new style of jiu-jitsu fighters. How am I going to keep it on the feet? I have great wrestling... if the fight goes to the ground I'm not in trouble. I'm going to keep fighting on the ground whether I'm on top or on bottom. I'm planning for a war but I'm definitely going to take it too him. 

NWFS: You're striking is always on point, really really strong. Do you think once he gets hit, he's not going to be able to handle that on his feet and immediately go to the ground, or do you think he's gonna try to trade with you?
Marquardt: My guess is that he's going to come out aggressively either with strikes or with take downs. And honestly his strikes are to set up his take downs. I think he's saying that in interviews. I don't think its a secret. He wants to take me to the ground. If he does, he's going to have a hard time doing it, and he's going to use a lot of energy doing it. I'm going to make him waste a lot of energy trying to take me down, wear him out, and then go for the openness to knock him out.

NWFS: You've been on TV a lot shown training with a lot of different guys.. George St. Pierre... Did you have your super team together preparing for this fight?
Marquardt: We're always cross-training with each other several times a year. I go out to Montreal and George comes to Denver or to Albuquerque. And I go to Albuquerque all the time. And Keith comes up to Denver and Rashad comes up to Denver, ect. So we have a really good network of fighters.

NWFS: You just won an award. The Tequila CAZADORES Authentic Spirit Award. Tell us a little about that.
Marquardt: Well, its a UFC sponsor and they basically give awards for having good character and stuff like that. I think its pretty cool because they donated money to the charity of my choosing. It was the Sharon Antcliff Foundation. It was a charity that approached me a year ago to be the face of the charity and try and get them publicity and stuff like that. Its for Early Onset Alzheimer's.

[Learn more about the foundation at www.sharonantclifffoundation.org]

NWFS: That's neat. Was that something you normally do, charity work... 
Marquardt: Well.. I'm a Christian and I believe that's part of what you should do. Give back to people in need. I'm always open to helping out. They approached me to help with their charity and its really no work from me. Using my image and once in a while doing a little thing for them here and there. Its really no work for me. But definitely I think that's something that is very important. Especially like I said, if you're religious, that's what the bible teaches us to do.

 Many thanks to Nate for taking the time in granting this interview.

Check out his website HERE