Mike Chiappetta • E-mail

The sound of boos enveloping him, Nate Quarry entered the octagon at Montreal's Bell Centre with a plan. He was going to stalk his opponent, Kalib Starnes, around the cage, take control, and win over the fans one strike at a time. Everyone loves a winner, and Quarry had victory on his mind at UFC 83.

What followed was one of the most infamous and surreal MMA fights ever.

Starnes spent much of the 15 minutes backpedaling while Quarry chased him around, occasionally landing leg kicks and punches. Near the end of the fight, a clearly frustrated Quarry performed a mocking version of "the running man," then threw what he terms "rock hammer" punches while not defending himself before delivering the coup de grace: a perfectly delivered line from Rocky IV that sent the sellout crowd of 21,390 into one of its most raucous cheers of the night.

Quarry left the cage to a hero's sendoff, and the 36-year-old who didn't play any organized sports until he was 24 was suddenly back in the mix in UFC's middleweight division.

Since the fight, Quarry has devoted time to his family, taking his daughter to San Diego's Sea World and the zoo, but he recently took some time to talk to NBCSports.com about the Starnes fight, its aftermath, and his future.

Q: How well did you know Kalib before the match?
A: I don't know that I ever had met him. I just knew of him; I'd seen him around, but we really had no personal relationship.

Q: Going into the fight, what was your expectation about how it would go?
A: I felt his camp would come in with a game plan to stay on the outside and pick me apart with straight punches. He throws a nice one-two. But I felt that once I got inside and landed some shots and he felt the power, then he'd immediately try to clinch and take me down. I felt the whole fight was pretty much going to go that way.

Q: At what point of the match did you realize that he wasn’t engaging you?
A: Even in the first round, he seemed to be moving backwards so much, it was very frustrating to try to pin him down and corner him. We thought we'd come up with a way to answer every possible scenario, but I've never seen a fight like that, so it was one thing we couldn’t prepare for.

Q: Did you think that he was physically hurt, or what was going through your mind?
A: What my coach and I had discussed was that he's a momentum fighter. If he can get his feet underneath him and go forward, he'll do well. I've seen him do that over and over. He'll be down in a fight, but the other fighter slows down the pressure, and he'll start gaining momentum. My game plan was to provide constant forward pressure on him and let him know that I wasn't going anywhere. He could try to take me down, but he wasn't going to be successful. So I was just going to punish him all three rounds. I think that got into his head. He needed a few seconds to clear his mind, recompose himself and get a new game plan, but just wasn't going to give him that time.

Q: As it went along and you essentially ended up chasing him, did you think about a new game plan?
A: There's not a whole lot you can do when someone is moving backwards that fast. I've seen it over and over again in grappling competitions when one person goes in to win, and the other goes in not to lose.

When you have a fighter that doesn't want to engage, you just can't do much. If you shoot a takedown he's four feet away. If you try to set up a jab to land something else, he's four feet away. It's really frustrating to get something started when someone's running away that quickly. Generally, if a fighter is moving backwards, he's looking to counterpunch. They'll step out just a few inches; just enough that my shot will miss, but they can step in and land a shot. But when the whole goal is not to get hit, not necessarily to win the fight, then you're going to have a long day.

Q: Did you ever consider just standing in the middle of the ring and letting him come to you or is that simply too counterproductive to your strategy?
A: I did think about that a couple times. One thing I've noticed with the UFC mat lately, it's been really slick. But when I stood on that Harley-Davidson logo, I thought, "Oh man, I've good great footing here. I can stand here and if he comes to me, I can land some shots." But as soon as that thought went through my head, there was my coach's voice right there yelling, "'What are you doing? Run forward! Constant pressure!" So that's what I did.

Q: With hindsight being 20-20, do you think there's anything you could've done differently?
A: I've thought about that a few times. I've noticed that I was chasing him around a little bit, I could've cut off the ring a little better. But even then, I just don't see too much of a different outcome with him backing up that much. No offense to Kalib whatsoever, because he was actually throwing quite a few punches early. He did land a few on me. He was staying busy, but whenever I engaged, he wanted no part of it and backed away.

Q: After re-watching it, he was clearly more active in the first and then slowed down as it went along. He did say he broke a bone in his foot and you did a number on his leg with kicks.
A: A friend of mine did a kick count, and I landed over 40 kicks to that leg of his. That takes a monstrous toll. In some of those, I could feel his femur. My Thai coaches taught me how to put my weight on that kick, and my standup game has gotten so much better due to their coaching.

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