Nate Marquardt faces C.B. Dollaway this Saturday at UFC on FOX 17. The former number-one contender has fallen on hard times. He is currently 1-5 in his last six fights. Even more distressing is the fact that he is getting knocked out at mucher higher rate and absorbing more strikes than ever before in his career. Is this is a decline in physical ability or is Marquardt simply facing better opposition?
In his last seven fights, six out of his seven opponents have landed over two significant strikes per minute against him (per Fightmetric). Prior to his fight against Tyron Woodley in 2012, only two of Marquardt’s opponents in his Strikeforce/UFC career, had been that successful against him, Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen.
Marquardt has been knocked out in three of his last five bouts. Before he faced Jake Ellenberger in 2013, he had only been knocked out on one occasion, his title fight against Silva. During the same stretch, he scored only one knockout, a come-from-behind win over Woodley. In his preceding seven fights, Marquardt scored knockouts in four of seven bouts. He was getting hit less, landing more knockouts and getting knocked out less. Plus, he was actually facing, on average, higher ranked opposition. The following chart shows the stark difference over the course of his last 14 bouts. Ranking here refers to the Fight Matrix Generated Historical Ranking from the quarter in which the bout took place.
