Nathan Marquardt vs.
Wilson Gouveia

Much like the main event, Nathan Marquardt against Wilson Gouveia is a match-up of two would-be contenders. Nate is in Joe’s place in the sense that he has to overcome the memory of his loss to the current champion. Gouveia, much like Diego, is new to his weight class. Although Wilson has already won at middleweight, he failed to make 185 in his last fight. He may prove that dropping a weight class after a loss isn’t always a smart move. Then again, when you win the match even after a failed weight cut what’s the harm in doing it again? Thiago Alves gained lots of momentum with his win over Matt Hughes last year. It’s almost as if no one remembers he failed to make weight that night. I’ll give Wilson Gouveia the benefit of the doubt this time.

In all honesty, his bigger problem is his opponent. Nate is a much stronger fighter than Jason MacDonald. Despite losing to Anderson Silva (and who hasn’t done that?) Nate Marquardt has defeated most of his opponents in his long UFC career. The only exception was a decision loss to Thales Leites in which he was docked several points (1 point was a dubious call by Herb Dean) but was winning the fight otherwise. This is a good match by the UFC because both men could be given a title shot if the winner puts in a good performance.

Stylistically they look pretty even. Both have had impressive knockouts in their UFC careers. You could argue that Nate is the more technical fighter, which would give him the edge standing up. You could also argue that Nate has displayed better wrestling in his run at 185 but that doesn’t mean he can take down someone as large as Wilson Gouveia.

In terms of submissions, Gouveia has the better pedigree in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is Brazilian, after all. However Nate has never gotten into trouble while grappling with top submission artists so it’s hard to determine how much chance (if any) Gouveia has of pulling something off. At the very least he would need to damage Nate first and that could go either way.

Again, give credit to the UFC for putting two fighters together that are at similar points in their career. This certainly isn’t a showcase fight for anyone. But Nathan Marquardt deserves to be the favorite, if only by a small margin.

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