Nathan Quarry - An 'Ultimate Fighter' Makes His UFC Debut
by Thomas Gerbasi
In a sport full of interesting people, UFC middleweight prospect Nathan Quarry ranks up there with the best of them. A former real estate investor and entrepreneur who had been slugging it out in smaller shows across the nation, Quarry got his big break when he was chosen to participate in SpikeTV’s “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series. Unfortunately for the Oregon native, that was a literal break when an ankle injury eliminated him from the competition. Now fully healed (and with a win under his belt on the undercard of the series finale) Quarry returns to the small screen when he battles veteran Shonie Carter at UFC 53 on June 4. It’s his proper UFC debut, and as you’ll read in the following interview, Quarry is excited and ready to show what he can do in the Octagon. homas Gerbasi – You’re fighting Shonie Carter at UFC 53 on June 4. Carter is a very experienced fighter; what kind of difficulties does someone with that type of experience present?
Nathan Quarry - I think you’re going to see somebody who’s used to being in the game. He’s been out of the big show for a little bit so I think he’s gonna be excited; it’s his opportunity to make his name again in the UFC so I believe he’s gonna come in in shape and as a fierce competitor, and he’s just gonna be a great guy for me to come in and try to make my name in the UFC against. He’s gonna be looking to shut me down, so it should be a good time.

TG – A lot of fighters are given a lot easier time in their first fight in the big show than getting someone like Shonie Carter; what are your thoughts on the matchmaking for this show?
NQ - I feel that the UFC and Joe Silva are looking to have an entertaining show. They’re not looking to have someone go in, get dominated and get the hell beat out of him. They want to see a back and forth match, and that’s what the crowd wants to see. So they’re looking to set up competitive matches, and I’m honored that they’ve chosen me to fight against such a seasoned competitor. It shows maybe that they think I can hang at this level of competition, as opposed to feeding me guys who haven’t been around as much and looking to build my name a little more. They’re looking to get me into the mix and say ‘hey, we’ve got another contender that came out of our TUF show.’

Quarry may be inexperienced, but he has the standup game to give anyone fits
TG – ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ website’s forum has fanclub sections – yours has 80 pages so far, far surpassing those of your fellow competitors on the show. What is it like to get that type of reaction from people?
NQ - I really appreciate it. The thing that’s made the biggest difference to me is when people come up to me and say that they enjoyed me on the show and what I did and what I stood for. They were actually appreciating me as a person and my personality. Right now I’m the most famous fighter that nobody has ever seen fight. (Laughs) And for people to see the way I handled myself and the way that I dealt with adversity, and to come up to me and say how much they appreciate that really means quite a bit to me. I never understood why people got excited over actors – people that play roles and that are really just good at pretending to be something they’re not. But to have people come up to me and say ‘hey, I appreciated what you did on the show’, and to know in my heart that that was my true personality coming through, that makes me feel really good.

Besides the G.A.S.P. Girls on the forum and the so many people that have gone there, two people that really stick out in my mind are Matt Hughes’ mother and Ken Shamrock’s adopted father, Bob Shamrock. Both came up to me and said how much they appreciated me on the show and how they felt it was so good for the sport to have me there. Those kinds of things, when you have Matt Hughes’ mother and Bob Shamrock come up to you and tell you that you did good, you have to feel good about yourself.

TG – You don’t seem to be the type of guy to go looking for the media or running towards the nearest camera. As a low-key type of person, was it tough letting cameras into your life for that long?
NQ - I got used to it, and it went okay. I can adapt pretty well to whatever situation I’m in. But to be honest with you, sitting down and watching the show could be very disturbing at times. Especially the episode where Chris Leben had the problems with (Josh) Koscheck and Bobby Southworth. After I watched that episode, I had a hard time sleeping. I was up for three, four hours after the show and I had a hard time sleeping for the next couple of days because it just seemed so personal and so emotional, and now all of a sudden someone has seen those personal sides of me. Millions of people that I don’t know are seeing parts of myself that I don’t show to just anybody – things that don’t come up in everyday life. I’ve always been somewhat of a private person in that way; unfortunately a little bit harder to get to know for a lot of people. But then on the flip side, with them seeing this, and seeing that personal side, then they were also able to get to know me better. It’s made people feel a kinship to me and they can relate to the things that I’ve done and then they want to come up to me and say hello and ask me how I’m doing, and that makes me feel good.

In his TUF Finale match, Quarry outclassed Sincaid en route to a systematic KO
TG – Does it take a while to adjust to walking to the store and having people you’ve never seen before talk to you like they’ve known you forever?
NQ – (Laughs) It doesn’t bother me at all. People are relating to me and my personality from what they saw on the show. So if somebody comes up to me and says ‘I admire you for what you did’ or ‘you motivated me to change my life’, I can only feel good about that. I’m always gonna be there to say thank you and be as polite as I possibly can.

TG – How much did your association with the guys from Team Quest - who are all among the good guys in the sport – help you to handle all this?
NQ – For me, training with such great athletes takes away some of the intimidation factor going into a situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen. And then also, I’ve been with Randy (Couture) for years and years now, and I’ve been with him through great victories and I’ve been with him through crushing defeats. I’ve seen the way that he’s always handled himself – with dignity – and it really impressed in my mind that while I do fight, and I am a fighter, that’s not all that I am. There’s so much more to me and my personality than just that. So what’s the worst case scenario? I go into a competition and I lose? My friends aren’t going to abandon me. My friendships and the people that are with me aren’t with me because I’m a fighter. They’re with me because of the person that I am, and I happen to be a fighter as well.

I think that so many times people get in trouble because their whole persona revolves around being a fighter – ‘you need to respect me because I can beat you up,’ or ‘I’ve been here longer than you so you need to respect me.’ To me that’s just ridiculous. I’ve never understood that, and if Team Quest was that way, I guarantee you, I wouldn’t be there. I probably wouldn’t even be fighting anymore because I can’t handle that type of an atmosphere, where you have to bow down and kiss somebody’s ass because they’ve been training a year longer than you have. I don’t like being treated that way; why would I want to treat somebody else that way? The gyms that have that kind of an atmosphere eventually self-destruct. Nobody wants to be treated like a second-class citizen. In this day and age, I think people get confused, and fighters forget that we are entertainers. We are not defending our village from marauders. We’re trying to make a living off our sport, but in the end we’re entertainers, and we need people to remember who we are. If you take it too seriously, then the ride just becomes misery. You need to be in there for the love of the sport and for having fun; you get to be with your friends, and go train and exercise, and travel around the world. How can you not love this whole ride? It’s wonderful.

If he lands the right hand, things could go badly for Shonie Carter
TG – It is dangerous though, and there are risks involved. You’re someone who, if you left this tomorrow, has a backup plan. Why do this and take the risk when you do have other options?
NQ – People are made differently. As an example, when I was a child, a friend of mine got into photography and he always wanted to take pictures, and he was trying to get me interested in it. I thought to myself, ‘you know, I’m not the type of person that’s gonna stand on the outside and take the picture. I want people to see what I’m doing and want to take pictures of me.’ It wasn’t necessarily that I was going out and looking for glory – like you said, I’m not the type of person to run over to the camera or run for the interview – but I wanted to do things that were so exciting and interesting that people wanted to say ‘hey, I want to remember this moment’ and take a picture of what’s going on in my life.

To me, people spend so much of their lives looking to go from Point A to Point B, from birth to retirement, avoiding as much stress as possible. They want to make their whole lives smooth, with no bumps, and avoiding any confrontations if they possibly can. And they go through in an almost zombie-like state. They never feel those great highs that come from winning a competition, and they never feel those incredible lows that come from losing a competition. They go through their lives without really experiencing what life is all about anyway. For me, that was the biggest key. My first competition, the reason why I did it was to learn about myself. What type of man would I be when I stepped into that ring? I knew it was just on me. No one else would be able to help me. Would I take a punch and run away? Would I panic? Would I lose my composure? Or would I stand my ground and fight until I could no longer fight anymore? Those are things that the average person can’t even discover about themselves in this day and age.

To me, so much of it is just the experience of getting in there: the camaraderie that you get from everybody working towards a single goal, and the memories from all that are just irreplaceable. People pay thousands of dollars to be around fighters and experience just some little bit of what we’re going through, and here we’re doing it and getting paid for it. It’s just a phenomenal feeling, and something that can’t be replaced by a real estate deal or getting a job.

Get ready MMA world, here comes Nathan "The Rock" Quarry
TG – Before “The Ultimate Fighter” series, what would it have meant for you to get a shot at being in the UFC?
NQ – To tell you the truth, I never even dreamed this big. When I started training it was because I’d get excited watching the UFC, and me and my friends would beat the hell out of each other on the carpet. I wanted to get the edge on these guys, so I started training, and I got the hell kicked out of me so badly that I was like ‘That’s it. I’m gonna keep coming here and just keep training.’ And two years after I walked through the door, they started a competition team and asked me to be on it. Before that time I had never even considered competing. It was something that was never in my mind. Some things have gone incredibly well, and other things have gone horribly, as far as getting injuries at just the wrong time, but I look at where I’m at now and the doors that are opening for me and it’s just so amazing. It just blows my mind at how somebody like myself, who never really even dared to dream this big, is now in the middle of it. I went from watching UFC and drinking beers with my friends on my couch, to being in the cage with Big John (McCarthy) telling me to get it on. I never even dreamed that big; I never even considered that somehow this would be open to me, that I would be standing next to Ken Shamrock – who at one time I sat and just went ‘man, that is the baddest guy on the planet.’ It’s just amazing to me.

TG – Does that get intimidating at times, or has it just been a blur?
NQ – It’s not really intimidating to me because, like I said, I can’t see taking this too seriously. I love what I do and I train non-stop. When I decide I’m going to do something I take it as seriously as possible, but to me, it’s still just a fun ride. I can’t look at it like this is a life or death situation. I don’t get intimidated by people and I try not to get intimidated by situations. I’m just so happy to be here in the mix and to be a part of this. I don’t want to put the notion of being intimidated or nervous anywhere in my psyche because I want to enjoy this ride. I want to be happy to be there.

TG – So you’re able to enjoy what’s been going on so far?
NQ – That fight I had at ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ finale, weeks before I was nervous, just like I always am, thinking about what I was getting into and how the fight was gonna go, but as the days get closer and closer, it’s just like ‘yes, it’s almost here; it’s finally here.’ The day of the weigh-in, you couldn’t take the smile off my face. I was just so happy that it was finally there, and as I’m going into the cage, the love that I felt from everybody in that arena was just amazing. It was like all these people knew who I was and were cheering for me. They wanted me to do the best that I could. It was such a phenomenal feeling and I was just so happy to be there and to show everybody why I was picked for the show and why I was a contender for that whole thing. It’s amazing, it’s been such a good run, and it’s so fun.