UFC Fight Night 43's Nate Marquardt worried about own issues, not Te Huna's drop down

The big storyline for UFC Fight Night 43 seems to be one MMA veteran moving back up in weight, and another moving down.

Nate Marquardt (32-13-2 MMA, 10-6 UFC), who returns to middleweight after a four-fight stint at welterweight, knows his change in weight classes is a story. But apart from saying it was something that was meant to be, he isn’t really thinking about it too much for his fight against James Te Huna (16-7 MMA, 5-3 UFC).

The two headline UFC Fight Night 43 early Saturday morning from Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand. The entire card streams on UFC Fight Pass.

At the very least, Marquardt was focused on his own return to middleweight and not Te Huna’s drop from light heavyweight, and whether that was going to impact him negatively.

“It’s not really part of my consideration,” Marquardt told MMAjunkie Radio earlier this week. “For all I know, he’s perfectly fine at this weight. Maybe he’s meant to be at this weight. The way I look at this fight is, from a technical aspect, where is he open and how I’m going to be able to attack, and what things I need to watch out for.”

Te Huna is a New Zealand native, which Marquardt says puts the pressure on him to perform. He said that kind of thing has never mattered to him, personally – at least not once the cage door closes.

But with a three-fight losing skid, he may feel pressure of his own to snap out of it. He lost his Strikeforce welterweight title in his one defense of it in January 2013. Since he moved back to the UFC, he has been knocked out twice in the first round.

But he’s not looking back on things, other than using bad experiences as a way to improve this time out.

“The path I’ve taken is exactly what’s supposed to happen,” he said. “There’s a lot of things I look back on like, ‘Man, I shouldn’t have done that.’ But I’ve learned from my mistakes and become a better fighter because of it.”

At 35, the Denver-based fighter hopes there’s still time to make another run at a UFC title, too.

That, of course, needs to start with a win over Te Huna in a fight in which he’s a 2-to-1 underdog.

“If you ask if I still have (winning a UFC title) as a goal, yeah, for sure,” he said. “That being said, though, the main thing is what’s in front of me right now. I’ve got to keep focused on that. I can’t look past that. I can’t plan my career or anything like that. I just have to go out and fight my hardest each and every fight that’s in front of me.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 43, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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