Steve Cofield over at Yahoo! Sports has a write-up talking Nate Marquardt's potential as an opponent that could cause some problems for Anderson Silva in the future. Steve doesn't actually throw out any opinions of his own in this piece, but rather states some quotes from Marquardt's radio interview with ProMMARadio.com. Here are those quotes for fans to ingest:

"I have a lot of tools to beat the things that he does. I'm a different fighter now," Marquardt told ProMMARadio's Larry Pepe. "The way I fought him, I didn't go out and fight to win. Now I'm going for knockouts and I'm going for the submission."
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"Forrest had a horrible gameplan going in. A lot of it was the outside pressure to make an exciting fight. Forrest rushed in and just got caught. Then he did it a second time and got knocked out."
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"I believe when I rematch (Silva), he's going to have the belt. Dan's standup is pretty one-dimensional. He's a great fighter and has a lot of power, but Anderson's going to be able to deal with that. He has a lot more tools on the feet. I don't think Henderson has enough tools to finish on the ground."

When looking at Nate Marquardt in the present, it's fairly obvious that he's bulked up, become a much stronger fighter, and has the overall size advantage as a middleweight to give Anderson Silva some problems if he can actually induce a clinch or gain a takedown.

But when you look down his record, there's a pattern that forms as Marquardt moves up in competition that may or may not still be the case at this point in his career. You could make the argument that Marquardt has conformed to the UFC way of fighting in that he fights with excitement rather than style in his past fights. He struck with both Wilson Gouveia and Martin Kampmann with spectacular results, but Gouveia and Kampmann aren't fantastic defensive strikers either. As evident in past fights, both Gouveia and Kampmann are rather susceptible to being floored.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a major strength of Marquardt's skill-set, but most fans would categorize him in the "defensive" grappling department over actually being a submission threat throughout a fight. Silva actually trains with very good offensive and defensive black belts in his camps, so I'd be hesitant to truly believe Marquardt would ever be a threat in that department.

Ultimately, speed is still the biggest problem for a guy like Nate Marquardt. We can critique his skill-set all we want, but speed is something that Nate Marquardt will have terrible problems combating, especially with a bulky physique at middleweight. While he has big power, dynamic striking ability, and solid ground tactics, he won't compete with the speed that Anderson Silva brings to the table. I would agree that Marquardt on top of Silva in a ground battle is a solid prospect for a Marquardt victory, but many opponents have believed they could put him there and have failed...including Marquardt.

If Nate gets past the jiu-jitsu prowess of Demian Maia at UFC 102, he'll definitely be in line for another shot at the title down the road after the UFC considers Dan Henderson, a super fight with GSP, or another tilt at light heavyweight. Ultimately, I still believe that Silva's speed is the silver bullet in Marquardt's armor with his bulkier frame, and it just so happens that Anderson Silva is one of the fastest and most accurate punchers in the sport.