It seems he just chokes in big events, might just be a psychological thing that he regularly fails to deliver when he is close to the top.
Maybe Okami, Anderson Silva, Sonnen and Saffiedine are just really good? He's not losing to homeless dudes.
in the Okami and Saffedine fights he seemed more tentative the usual Seems to under-perform in important fights =(
I hate when people talk about fighters who cant get to the top being "chokers". Why didnt he choke when fighting Woodley? Maybe he is just losing to better fighter bro
had nothing to do with his mental. He got out struck by a more technically sound striker. Nate is basically a great brawler. If he can drag you into a back and forth battle he's going to absolutely scorch you but if you pick your shots, counter him and make it a technical battle it's not hard to out strike him.
He hasn't done as much as he might have in major fights over the years but that takes too much away from his opponents. He just might not be as good as them and Saffiedine might have fought the smarter fight.
Maybe Nate looked past Tarec with all the GSP fight talk, but Tarec is no chump especially having trained a lot with Mr. Badass Dan Henderson.
If he would have come into the fight trying to make it a ground fight he would have had a much better chance, he has underrated wrestling, Marquardt had a poor gameplan and wasn't able to adjust when the stand up wasn't going the way he expected.
I don't think we should be too hard on Marquardt for this fight. Saffiedine looked really, really good and has awesome defense in all areas of MMA, difficult stuff for someone like Marquardt who is a mainly offensive fighter.
That may be true in other fights, like the Sonnen or Okami ones, where he was going to get a title shot again if he had won, but not so much against Tarec, I don't think. He was favoured 3:1(?) and many, if not most, thought it was a foregone conclusion he's gonna win and make his way back to the UFC. So I don't think there was that much pressure on him lastnight. He looked in good shape. That Tarec guy was just very good as well. Just look at how good his strikes are, especially the kicks.
He didn't choke and he wasn't mentally off. He just got beat by a guy who was a better striker last night. The announcers even said he thought he'd be able to take Saf down, it was clear to me he'd worked on his TDD.
I think it's less about choking and more about not being allowed to implement his style by the top tier of opponents. By Round 3 Donald Cerrone looked like a poor, timid little animal being forced to fight against his will because he'd allowed Nate to get in there and start landing. Benson didn't allow that to happen
if he lost to the better fighter last night, not only is he in trouble if he comes over.. maybe its time to retire,, :icon_evil
