Starting with backwater bouts, for Nate Quarry it was a long and interesting road to fighting for the UFC middleweight title against Rich Franklin.

Q: Your first pro fight is recorded as being a win over UFC veteran Drew McFedries in 2001. Being in the ‘dark’ days of the sport, was that actually your first MMA bout?

Nate: “No, I think I had six fights before that. My first fight was about 14 years ago, back when no one knew what the sport was. The only advantage I ever had was I fell into this sport before the masses did.

"My first fight was in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know who I was fighting. He outweighed me by a pretty substantial amount. There was a fight doctor there. She was checking my pulse and she looks at me and says, ‘Are you OK? Your resting heart rate is 130bpm!’ I said, ‘I’m just a little excited.’ And she said, ‘OK, I’ll clear you to fight’.

"In my mind that was just like an amateur fight because it was an open-hand Pancrase fight, but after that it was pro rules from then on. Even when I fought Drew McFedries it was a combination of UFC and Pride rules; you could elbow and knee on the ground.”

Q: What was your record?

“I went 5-1, well, actually, 6-0. My fight with Mike Whitehead, we both call that a win (laughs). We were fighting in Portland in the WPKO, the World Pankration and Kickboxing Organization. It was a ring in the middle of a bar with chairs put right up against it, so people could reach in and grab the fighters.

“The first round was 15 minutes long with a five-minute overtime. The timekeeper, the referee and the judges were chosen out of the crowd by the promoter. At the beginning the timekeeper bumped the clock, 27 minutes later he asks a judge, ‘Hey, do you think it’s been 15 minutes?’ So they ring the bell, and we go back to our corners and we come back out for a five-minute overtime.

"Every time I was in a good position, Whitehead would try to crawl out of the ring to get a stand-up. I whipped the triangle on him three or four times. He would shove me through the ropes, the ref would break us, Mike would stand up, the ref would say, ‘OK, get back down into the triangle.’ And Mike would go, ‘Hell no. What are you going to do?’

"So the ref would stand me up. At one point I had his back for over five minutes, punching him in the ribs, while his hand is on the side of the ring trying to pull himself out. I hit him, knock him unconscious, grab the rope and pull him back in.

"The referee yells at me for grabbing the rope, I yell at the ref because Mike’s trying to crawl out, I hit Mike again, he wakes up and we continue fighting. And I didn’t know this until years later when Mike and his camp told me. At the end, the ref asked the judges who won, and they go, ‘I don’t know if it was Mike…’ and all the ref heard was Mike, so he goes back to the ring and announces him as the winner. I was distraught. So, we both count that as a win.”

Q: You’re best known for being on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter and your UFC career, but you now have a brand called Zombie Cage Fighter, right? 

“Everyone was asking me to do an autobiography, so I started writing out my life experiences but then threw in a little flavor, which is the zombies. I ended up with a 24-page treatment which I’ve since turned into a screen play. It’s had interest from a Hollywood studio. It’s an alternate reality story where zombies haven’t taken over the world, they’re more a nuisance. In it I’m cut by the UFC and run into a fighter I used to know and he invites me to get involved in underground zombie cage fights. There’s a Zombie Cage Fighter comic book, animated series and T-shirts.”

Q: You fought Rich Franklin for the UFC middleweight belt in 2005 and lost by first-round knockout. That’s a part of Franklin’s highlight reel. How does that feel?

“Everybody’s a highlight for somebody. If you’re not a highlight for somebody you’re not fighting tough enough guys, or you’re Jon Jones. Rich is a highlight for Anderson Silva, who’s a highlight for Ryo Chonan. It’s all a big circle.””

Nate Quarry retired in 2010 with an official MMA record of 12-4.

In 2015, Nate came out of retirement for an exhibition bout with 19-year-old Jacob "Jake" Beckmann at Rumble at the Roseland. Beckmann has Down's syndrome and had been training martial arts for a number of years. He had long dreamed to compete in a MMA match and Nate helped his wish come true. Quarry was submitted via leg lock in the second round. Beckmann was crowned 'world heavyweight champion' and adorned with a replica UFC title belt. The match also raised $1,000 for charity.