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Marquardt's trainer would encourage GSP collision

Nate Marquardt is a former No. 1 middleweight contender © Getty Images

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Nate Marquardt's trainer Trevor Wittman has revealed he would actively encourage his charge to fight Georges St-Pierre if he earns a welterweight title shot.

Marquardt and St-Pierre are long-term training partners and good friends, but their careers are on collision course for the first time after Marquardt dropped down from middleweight.

Always a contender at 185lbs, Marquardt is expected to go on a run at 170, starting with Rick Story in the UFC Live main event this weekend.

A solitary victory could even book him a date with St-Pierre, although in all likelihood he will probably need a further win given GSP's commitment to a clash with Nick Diaz later this year. Marquardt is yet to guarantee that he would fight his friend, but trainer Wittman is in little doubt.

"A lot of people understand the way I feel about it," Wittman said to ESPN. "I'm always [in favour of] having friends fight each other and training partners fight each other.

"In this game we want to find out who is the best in the world. At some point, if one guy is the No. 1 contender and the other is champion, you have to do the right thing and go out there and share that spotlight and show the world what friends can do.

"This goes back to the time of [boxers] Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward. Those guys were great friends."

Commenting on the state of Marquardt's game, Wittman insists the Denver-based striker has never hit so hard in his UFC career.

"Being a boxing coach, I'm seeing his punches turn all the way through," Wittman said. "In the past, he'd throw a punch and would be very stiff in the shoulders. Now his hooks are rotating to the point where he can almost hit himself in the back shoulder. His flexibility is better.

"I see a whole different dude. And he's keeping his strength. It's really [due to] getting rid of the water weight."

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