The Return of Nate Quarry
By
Thomas Gerbasi
Nate Quarry had finally reached the breaking point.
Tortured <TABLE align=right><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>by the pain of a degenerative disc condition in his back, the former UFC middleweight title challenger was forced to face the fact that his fighting career was on the verge of ending, and that only a dangerous spinal fusion surgery would save it.
The surgeon didn’t sugar coat things for the Oregon resident either, letting him know that while the surgery could be a success, it could also fail – with fatal consequences.
“Here’s the drawbacks,” he told Quarry.
“You could die on the operating table.”
“You may be paralyzed.”
“The surgery may not work at all and you may still be in pain; you may be in worse pain, or we may cut the pain down by 50 percent.”
“It’s a gamble,” he concluded.
Quarry pondered his options for a moment, and then realized he didn’t have any.
“I don’t see as if I have any choice,” said Quarry, and his doctor agreed to perform the surgery.
“I’ve been told my whole life what I’m gonna be and what I’m gonna do,” explained Quarry, “and now I’ve had to make my own decisions about where I’m gonna end up, so for me, it was a simple decision.”
So on June 14, 2006, Nate Quarry began his biggest fight, and one that, for the first time, he had no say in the outcome of. But when the back surgery was over, the two vertebrae in his back that had been grinding against each other and forcing him to walk and feel like a man 50 years his senior, had fused together. The pain was gone.
The previous three years had been filled with pain followed by anti-inflammatories and ice that would ease his torture, albeit briefly. Quarry would wake up in the morning barely able to walk from his bed to the bathroom, and he couldn’t even lean over the sink to wash his face. Instead, he would support himself on the sink with his left hand and scoop water to his face with the right. Even lifting up his daughter (now seven) was not an option.
But Quarry fought on, taking the pain as an occupational hazard as he burst on the scene with his stint on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. And by the time he fought his way into a 2005 title shot against then-UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin at UFC 56, he was 14-1 in pro MMA, and 3-0 with three TKOs in the Octagon.
“It really never affected any of my fights whatsoever,” said Quarry of his back issues. “There’s no way in hell I will ever use an excuse such as that. But it was one more thing to be thinking about during my training.”
Against Franklin, Quarry would crash hard, getting knocked out in the first round with a shot that will be replayed on UFC highlight reels for perpetuity. Some said it was a case of Quarry being rushed into a title shot; others figured that was the end for Quarry, especially when he didn’t surface for a while after the defeat. Few knew that it was his back that had given out on him in the aftermath of the Franklin bout, not his desire to keep fighting.
Yet even with the surgery complete, the road back to the UFC was not going to be an easy one. In fact, it was going to be more grueling and would test Quarry more than any fight ever had. But after a childhood and young adulthood being raised in an environment where he was not allowed to play sports or allowed to explore life outside of his home due to his upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness, he was not about to give up on his dream.
“I’m sure that there are much easier ways to make your way through life, I just haven’t figured out what they are yet,” he chuckles. “Ever since I was a little kid, I was very restricted in what I was allowed to do. I wasn’t allowed to compete in sports, and that was really something that was a hunger in me. I wanted to do that, I wanted to push myself to the limit and see how good I could be and how good I could be in competition against others, and that was something I wasn’t allowed to do. And finally, when I started living life for myself, then it was like ‘I have no limitations. My limitations are when my body shuts down, because my mind won’t.’”
Quarry’s body hasn’t cooperated so far though, as he has dealt not only with his back issues, but with surgeries for a nose reconstruction, a torn right pectoral muscle, and a broken ankle. He doesn’t cry ‘woe is me’ though.
“These are the cards I was dealt and now we’re gonna play out this hand, and in the end, I’m gonna win,” he said. “Thank God surgery is around to put things together. Some people have a very fortunate career where they don’t get injured like this. I haven’t been one of those guys, but at the same time, when I look back at my life and where I came from, I could be so much further away from where I am now. I have friends to this day that grew up very similar to the way that I did, and they’re hardcore alcoholics, have messed up family lives, are on drugs all the time, and are basically living out of their vans. And all I can say when I see them is, ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’ It could have been so easy for me - instead of having this drive to make myself something and to show the world that we can be whatever we choose to be - I could have easily just found myself in the bottom of a bottle. But that’s not me and I want to experience what life has to give to the fullest.”
He also wants to set an example for the most important person in his life, his daughter.
“That has been a very huge motivating factor for me and I’ve actually wondered what my life would be like without my little girl,” said Quarry. “Would I have the same drive I have now? So much of what I do is to show her that she can make her life whatever she wants it to be, and I will tell her that constantly. When I was raised, going to college was never an option for me. I was raised to be a manual laborer and live my life as such. But with her, I want her to know that she could pursue any options she wants to in her life and so I set the example for her.”
That example started years ago, but it really kicked in the day after his back surgery when he almost immediately began walking the hospital floor. A week later back in his hotel, his mission was to walk halfway down the hallway and back. Two days after that, the goal was to walk the entire hall. Less than a year removed from fighting for a world championship in one of the world’s most demanding sports, Nate Quarry had to re-learn the simplest movements that we all take for granted.
“Each day was pushing the limitations further and further,” he recalled, but with each two steps forward, he would suffer a little setback that
let him know that he wasn’t ready to resume training. Whether it was visiting the weight training gym and not being able to do a dip or a back extension, or being cleared to start boxing training and not being allowed to do anything but wrap up and hit his trainer’s hands, it was, as he describes it, “a very excruciating period of time, but at the same time it was very exhilarating to finally know that I was taking my steps back.”
Finally, six months after the surgery, Quarry got an early Christmas present when his doctors cleared him to begin full training again, and he was going to be a fighter again. Of course, nothing never goes as smoothly as it may seem in a couple of paragraphs, and Quarry was also forced to deal with a split from the gang at Team Quest before he would truly get back on the road to the Octagon.
“I left Team Quest purely because I disagreed with the management style and the way that they were treating the fighters and the team as a whole, so I felt that I needed to voice my opinion and stand up not only for my future and my daughter’s future, but also for the other fighters on the team,” said Quarry of the split. “And so when we had a disagreement, Quest basically said take it or leave it, and I said ‘well, my future depends on this so I guess I’m gonna have to go elsewhere.’ So I definitely miss the training partners, and miss being able to show up at the gym and knowing that 4-5 of my closest friends will be there to give me rounds. But at the same time, now that I’ve broken free and opened my eyes, I’ve gone out and got individual coaches like I’ve never had before.”
He’s also stayed close with some of this Team Quest teammates, some of whom helped him train recently, and Quarry also went out to Hawaii for a spell to work with another former Team Quest member, Chris Leben. All that was left was to get a fight, and when the call came for him to fight an old nemesis, Pete Sell, on Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night card in Las Vegas, he eagerly accepted. But to be truthful, Quarry didn’t care who the man on the other side of the Octagon was – he was just happy to be fighting anyone again.
“I think its kinda academic who the opponent is,” he admitted. “I was just looking for a tough opponent to prove to myself again what I’m capable of and to show that to everyone, so I’m just grateful that Pete accepted the fight and I’ve got the same opinion of Pete now that I had before, that he is a very tough guy, and you can see that in all of his fights. There’s no quit in him whatsoever, so he’s going to be coming at me and looking to show that the last fight was a fluke, and I’m looking to show that I didn’t just get lucky, and that’s the way it was meant to be. So I think it’s gonna be a great fight for the fans because we’re gonna be standing there bangin’ or going down to the ground and beating on each other. It’s just gonna be an exciting fight all the way around, and I look forward to that. Those are the best fights.”
In their first fight, in August of 2005, Quarry rocked and dropped Sell, with referee Cecil Peoples quickly stepping in to halt the fight in controversial fashion. The win propelled Quarry into his title shot against Franklin and all was well in the world for him at the time. Since then though, life and the middleweight division has changed significantly. That’s a good thing on both counts for Quarry.
“I think it’s really exciting,” he said. “The UFC has always been the best organization around and now they’re pulling in fighters from all around the world. And with so many cards now, you get to see all these fighters. It used to be five UFC cards a year, so basically it was one, two, three, title shot, you’re out. Now there are so many cards and so many good fighters that for the fans, it’s just gotta be a wonderful buffet because they get to see their favorite fighter and maybe he’s not the titleholder, or maybe he’s not in the top ten in the world, but there’s enough action out there that he can fight in the UFC for several years and build himself up to where he will be a title contender. That’s exciting for me as a fan and as a fighter.”
For fans, Quarry’s return is pretty exciting in itself if he can regain the form that made him one of the top 185-pound prospects in the game two years ago. If he does, and makes it to the top, it will be MMA’s equivalent of Jim Braddock’s ‘Cinderella Man’ story. If he doesn’t, hey, he still made it back to the big show despite the odds, and that alone makes him someone to root for.
“I’m gonna continue to fight, not only as a career move, but as a lifestyle choice, and to show that I can be a motivation to everyone out there that has any difficulty that they may be presented with in their lives,” said Quarry. “They can look at what I’ve gone through and say, ‘man, if he went through major back surgery and now he’s fighting for the greatest mixed martial arts organization in the world again, then I can get through whatever problems I may have.’ That was a huge motivating factor – not just for my livelihood, but also to show others that your life can be more than you’re told it has to be.”
