Starnes had a plan going into the fight. He hadn’t trained for his ground game for some time, focusing instead on his stand-up skills, reasoning that Nate Quarry would be tough to get on the floor and wouldn’t voluntarily head there.
“I figured I could out-strike him. I was looking to jab and move, to test his cardio and maybe draw him in.”
But Quarry didn’t come in.
“He was doing something called ‘fading’, where he comes in a little, and as I jab, he leans back out of range and counterpunches with big hooks and kicks. The first round was pretty boring – I was backpedaling to stay away from his power punches and he was coming only close enough to look like he was chasing.”
At the end of the round, Starnes changed his approach. He decided he would start hitting Quarry with kicks and takedown attempts.
“But the first kick I hit him with, I broke a bone in my foot. It was painful – I could still move about on it, but I couldn’t kick with any force. And when I tried to take him down, I couldn’t really shoot off it, so that combined with his strength, he just pushed me off. I was really out of options at that point, you know? So I tried to stay clear of him and wait for a chance to catch him with a big punch. The crowd didn’t like it, but it was the only way I had left to win.”
So brutal in fact, that Quarry started to mock Starnes in the ring, jogging in place and holding one arm in front of his face as he waved one arm out at his retreating opponent.
“At that point, things changed for me. it wasn’t a fight anymore. It was some kind of a circus. I know it wasn’t an exciting fight to watch, but if I stood there and let him clobber me, would that be a better fight? That’s what the crowd wants, for someone to get knocked out, but not one of them would stand there and let someone with the power of Quarry just beat the crap out of them.”
Starnes ventured to Hawaii last Saturday for the first fight in his post-UFC career and, as always, controversy followed.
“I was supposed to fight a guy named Kala Hose, then two days before the fight he didn’t show up to the press conference. Then his representatives claimed they thought the fight would be three minute rounds, not five, so they wanted that changed. It was bullshit – nobody fights three minute rounds anywhere that I know of, but I agreed because I wanted the fight. Then they said he hadn’t trained for a week because of the dispute so they wanted more money to show up.”
At the zero hour, another unbeaten local Hawaiian fighter, Dylan Clay, was substituted for Hose. Then he too started asking for more money. And less rounds. And more…
“He finally decided he’d only fight if it was an exhibition fight, so it wouldn’t count against his record if he lost,” says Starnes. “You’ve gotta love that sort of confidence in a fighter, don’t you?”
Then, as Starnes prepared to enter the ring, his opponent was changed once again. It didn’t matter in the end; Starnes dominated the fight throughout and made his opponent submit to an armbar in the second round. At one point, he even picked up his opponent, spun him around a few times for the hell of it, and bodyslammed him to the floor.
“It felt good,” says Starnes. “The crowd was silent for a change.”
A great read from the Vancouver Sun.