Dissection by Dallas: Nate Marquardt x Chael Sonnen

We now enter what I feel is the most compelling contest on the UFC 109 card, with a red carpet leading towards a title shot with Anderson Silva to be unrolled for the victor.

Nate "The Great" Marquardt is a seven-time King of Pancrase, and is now one of the most experienced and diverse middleweights in the world.  He, along with multi-weight class king Dan Henderson, has established himself as the standout competitor in the chase to challenge Silva; and with Hendo jumping the promotional fence to try his hand in Strikeforce, Marquardt stands in sheer isolation as the UFC's top middleweight contender.

Unless, that is, your name is Vitor Belfort, and you've beaten a measly three unranked middleweights elsewhere and one UFC icon in a bout outside the relevant weight class, and are handed a gift-wrapped title shot based on name value and excitement.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course; but Marquardt's earned his stripes by manhandling everyone in his path since joining the UFC besides middleweight monarch Silva and a shakey split-decision loss to Thales Leites that he should have won.

Under the wise and wary tutelage of the renowned Greg Jackson, Marquardt has further adapted the crafty ground assault he's been wielding successfully for over a decade, and seriously accelerated his striking game to slowly and steadily morph into a fighter with few weaknesses and weapons aplenty.

Moving forward to the man standing opposite Marquardt in the cage come fight-time, Chael Sonnen has seated himself, grown, and festered on the forehead of the MMA frontlines by bullying past a respectable list of competition while setting fires throughout the media with barbed opinions.  Sonnen's ascent onto the world middleweight stage was sparked by a thorough beating given to heralded submissionist Paulo Filho in a WEC championship bout before the tides were quickly turned with an armbar-stoppage that Sonnen furiously disputed.

The Team Quest product took apart Bryan Baker and then dug his claws back into a lethargic Filho, soundly defeating the champ in what would turn out to be a futile venture status-wise after the WEC's middleweight division was folded into the UFC's.  Sonnen began anew in the octagon and succumbed to the otherworldly grappling adroitness of Demian Maia in his first outing, but rebounded with startlingly dominant victories over solid middleweight stalwarts Dan Miller and Yushin Okami, the former making up the long-running dark horse contender behind Marquardt and Henderson.

Spotlighting each fighter's career record, standing at 23-10-1, Sonnen bears a red flag in that 60% of his losses have come by way of submission, and 29-8-2 Marquardt holds nearly the same ratio for defeating his opponent's in the same fashion.  It's been a while since Nate tapped out a high-caliber fighter, and although he'll hold the clear edge in this category, the numbers still don't add up to a likely submission win for Marquardt.

In fact, it's also been some time since Marquardt has faced a wrestler of Sonnen's magnitude.  Marquardt may arguably posess the most impressive frame of performances over talented middleweight grapplers, vanquishing Daiju Takase, Kazuo Misaki, Ivan Salaverry, Joe Doerksen, Jeremy Horn, Dean Lister, and Demian Maia, but five of the eight losses on his track record have been at the hands of skilled grapplers with a strong wrestling foundation whom were able to control and contain him to a decision-victory.

This is a point rarely alluded to in the breakdowns I've seen of this fight, and as much as Marquardt has improved, and although the Maia-fight may present contrary evidence, Sonnen has also focused on submission defense and avoidance, filling a hole that has plagued him in the past and is something that will drastically increase his chances of success in this bout.  Marquardt is an underrated wrestler himself, but I believe Sonnen will stake his claim as the combatant with the skills and intentions to invoke control in the clinch and on the ground.  This is what he's known for, and Sonnen himself quite humbly concedes that Marquardt is the better striker and more complete grappler, so his focus should be finite.

Getting down to brass tacks, and considering that Marquardt has the more multifaceted set of skills, the question rests on how Sonnen can win.  Barring the ever-present but highly unlikely puncher's chance, the options are a TKO by ground-n-pound or grinding out a low-gear containment to a decision based on control.  With the gap between their contrasting grappling styles being very close in the overall scheme of things, the latter suspicion holds the most weight.  To enact this scenario, Sonnen would be forced to blanket and smother Marquardt for three straight rounds while maintaining some form of creditable offense.

Instead of analyzing and interpreting all the different pathways towards triumph for Marquardt, I do see him being too clever, experienced, high-paced, and motivated to allow Sonnen to lay on top of him for the bulk of the fight.  Frankly, he's been anticipating Sonnen's one-dimensional strategy, and he's good enough to neutralize it.  Sonnen is no slouch in the stand-up department, but Marquardt will have his way without over-committing or exposing himself, and the same holds true should the fight hit the canvas.  My guess:  Marquardt by decision