Athletes
Julian Marquez Embraces The Journey Of Life
Life Has Thrown Its Curveballs To Julian Marquez, But That Isn't Stopping Him From Chasing His Dream
If Julian Marquez isn’t the most positive person on the UFC roster, he’s at least in the Top Five, and, off the top of my head, I can’t think of the other four.
Think about it. He’s the same guy who suffered a fully torn latissimus dorsi muscle that left him on the sidelines for nearly two years. Then he triumphantly returns with two bonus-winning submissions before losing two in a row by knockout. All the while, he’s been on a merry-go-round of training camps from Kansas City to Colorado to Arizona, leaving him on a layoff of over a year heading into Saturday’s return against Zachary Reese.
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I’m already complaining, and it’s not even my life. But Marquez has weathered the storms – maybe not always with a smile, but always without a frown.
“The universe guides you in certain ways and you can't get mad because you may have a s**tty day,” he said. “It could be good, it could be bad, so you can't get mad at anything in life. Things happen the way they should happen.”
Julian Marquez Finishes Sam Alvey Via Submission | UFC Fight Night: Vettori Vs Holland
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Julian Marquez Finishes Sam Alvey Via Submission | UFC Fight Night: Vettori Vs Holland
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If there is any justice in the world, those things will hopefully go in the right direction for the 34-year-old middleweight, or at least to a place where he can control his own destiny, something that hasn’t always been the case.
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Take the training situation, for example. Marquez loved being at home in Kansas City and training with James Krause and the Glory MMA team. But Krause got suspended and the team splintered. He enjoyed his time training with Marc Montoya at Factory X in Englewood, but Colorado wasn’t the right fit for him. So now he’s in Arizona with the MMA Lab, and he feels hot, but in the right place.
“I went from the cooler to the freezer, to the oven,” he laughs while “enjoying” a 105-degree day. “I love the oven, though.”
What he didn’t love were the injuries that left him unable to fight again for the last 15 months. Again, it’s enough to make you wonder who you pissed off to be dealt such a hand. Marquez doesn’t wonder about such matters.
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“At the end of the day, it's an outlook, right?” he said. “Charlie Chaplin said the best quote in the world: ‘Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but comedy in long-shot.’ And it’s true.”
That is an outlook to be embraced. I tell him of the recent passing of my mother-in-law, and how a joke shared with some old friends lightened the mood. I told them that sometimes, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Marquez agreed.
“Trust me, I've been through a lot in my life and it's okay,” he said. “You’ve got to remember, I lost my mom in the middle of my career and it's a traumatic deal. But then when you look at it, I've done a lot of stuff without a mom, and she taught me so much to grow. And without the time that I have with my mom, I wouldn't be who I am today. And then there are people out there that don't have time with their mom or don't have time with their parents. And then my coaches, I've lost coaches over the years. Some of them were forced out of my life, some of them were just not who I thought they were going to be. And I had to change and it's a tough sport, but I stayed at places longer than I should have. And I learned from it. And the thing is, is that it's all getting you to the final chapter. At the end of the day, I'm going to be who I'm going to be regardless of whatever happens in life. And if I become this s**tty person, I'll never be the person I should be.”
Right now, the person Marquez should be is the one who has won three UFC fights, all by finish, all with a bonus attached to them. And when he’s on and swinging for the cheap seats, he’s in the one place where the outside world can’t get to him. In the Octagon, he’s at peace.
“I've always told you I love fighting,” said Marquez. “This is who I am. This is where I want to be. I show up every time I fight, whether something goes wrong in the fight, whether something happens in the fight, I know for a fact I did everything I could to be there. I lost a few family members this year that were pillars of our life and it's okay. It happens. That's part of life. I can't be a person to get mad at the world for taking things away from me. The world is just guiding me to become the best I need to be.”
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Despite all the obstacles, Marquez feels like he’s getting closer to where he wants and needs to be. In a wide-open weight class, one of the hammers from “The Cuban Missile Crisis” can stop anyone at 185 pounds in their tracks. Add in that he’s a charismatic presence who always delivers excitement on fight night, win or lose, and maybe, just maybe, the negatives of the past are just that – in the past. That’s a positive outlook from a New Yorker, so imagine how Kansas City’s Marquez feels.
“I have a beautiful life, regardless of all the crazy stuff that happens in it, regardless of all the ups and downs and the highs and lows,” he said. “I just turned 34 and I have the ability to do whatever I want. I can go travel anywhere and still train. I can go and visit friends if I want to and still train. I don't have to wake up at a certain time if I don't want to. I don't have to have obligations to show up at the end of the day to make sure a client says this, that and the other. And then, on top of that, it gives me a different creative mind that allows me to expand into the real estate world, expand into the partnership world, expand into the business world where I can help my businesses take off on the side.
“And it's a luxury, but there’s the chase of the victory, the chase of the win, the excitement of going out there and performing in front of fans, going out there and doing what you dreamed about doing. I'm still young. I still feel young. And that is never going to leave you. I don't feel as if it's a time where I'm like, ‘Hey, it's time for me to retire.’ I'm not going on these ridiculous 20-fight losing streaks like some fighters do. I have a lot to give, and I have a lot to go, and I still have the ability to pursue my dream, and that's what I'm going to do. I set out on doing that and I'm going to achieve that and I'm going to continue doing it.”
UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Imavov took place live from KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky on June 8, 2024. See the final Prelims & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!
