How good was Mark Coleman?

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Yrat

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Mark Coleman for me was that fighter that has a strong personality , strong wrestling back then but it feels that he never got that right direction of his career and development.

My question is

- If Mark Coleman keep fought in UFC 2000-2003 do you think he would get the belt?
- Would Mark handle Tim Sylvia and Frank Mir?
- Would Mark become dangerous if he had the confidence in stand up? I mean go for a KO and want to brawl?
 
He might have been able to ground Sylvia, I think Mir arm bars him because of how he postured up on the GnP (ala Fedor armbarring him twice I think)

Would have loved to have him learned to stand and bang a bit more.

Great question tho TS.
 
Maybe, Mark Coleman was good but he wasn't some super fighter. He had huge holes in his game. He probably loses to Couture, Ricco Rodriguez, Barnett and Rizzo again. He could GNP Arlovski or get brutally KO'd.

Tim Sylvia is the real questionable fight.
 
He beat Randy Couture when they were both in their primes in amateur wrestling.

He goes down as the first ever UFC HW champion and Pride Grand Prix winner so he did pretty good despite his limitations.

Until he fought Maurice Smith he though that he, and his Olympic wrestling were invincible.
Give a phenom like that modern training and he would have been a beast, lower level wrestlers like Lesnar had such great success so Coleman would have potentially been better.
 
Interesting question. By 2000-2003, you had some well rounded heavyweights. I don’t think he would’ve fared well. Much like the rest of his career against top level fighters.

I’d be more curious to know what type of fighter he’d be today with modern day training. Probably would be a light heavyweight if USADA had anything to say about it. But no question the dude was a talent; there’s probably only been a handful of American wrestlers with his amateur credentials in the UFC.
 
Yrat said:
Mark Coleman for me was that fighter that has a strong personality , strong wrestling back then but it feels that he never got that right direction of his career and development.

My question is

- If Mark Coleman keep fought in UFC 2000-2003 do you think he would get the belt?
- Would Mark handle Tim Sylvia and Frank Mir?
- Would Mark become dangerous if he had the confidence in stand up? I mean go for a KO and want to brawl?
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Mark is an ATG and pioneer, first UFC HW champ, Pride GP champ. Obviously he was very one dimensional with mediocre cardio for a lot of his UFC run, but so was pretty much everyone else. He was a beast.

I always wonder how good him and especially Randleman could have been if they got out of their Hammer House comfort zone and trained with a more well rounded camp. I know they worked with Militech briefly, but if they were full time with him or Team Quest I wonder how different their careers would have been.

1. I don't think Coleman would be champ in 2000-2003 because I don't see him beating Couture, Barnett, Ricco or Sylvia.
2. I think he loses against Sylvia and Mir. He may get Sylvia down at first but I think he gasses out and gets stopped with strikes. Mir would most likely sub him from his back very quick.
3. If Mark had better standup that would have made a lot of difference. He just never really took to standup for whatever reason, some guys just never did. Maybe if he joined another camp like I mentioned earlier it would have clicked for him. Randleman wasn't a skilled striker but he was so goddamn athletic and explosive he could catch and hurt guys standing.
 
He was a torch barer. The guys that came off the back of a lot of the work he'd done were more versatile an durable. It's very hard to compare him because of that.

But he won both UFC and PRIDE Tournaments. Individually incredibly hard to win. To have both was an outstanding achievement.

His love for wrestling and his passion for the Hammer House. Randleman too. They were a partnership that took the sport forward in a way that others followed and many improved on. But they BOTH stand alone as pioneers of an era.

I don't think "he could have done this or that" really works with these two.
 
Likely would've beat Bas. IDK how those sparring sessions with Randleman went, I believe early on Kevin would get the better of him, Mark would have to outlast. But I believe Kerr was the best guy from Hammerhouse, when at his best. Bigger and stronger, could avoid getting subbed, like with the ADCC success and looking unstoppable in MMA before the wall.

Sylvia fight would depend on Coleman's cardio. Sylvia could go 5 rounds. If Mark can't keep taking him down Tim TKO's him. Mir would depend on Mark's success with GnP from half guard. But he was a full guard headbutt/GnP fighter. Mir was good in full guard, but vulnerable to GnP from half guard. DC loves half guard, talks about what a huge advantage for control it is. But DC can grapple as well.

Coleman had no talent for stand-up. Too stiff. Too reliant on getting on top to GnP. He was good for his time, but not for more modern times.
 
Coleman is a pioneer. He could of been a lot better if he'd of had a legit training team and incorporated more bjj/muay thai in his game. Much in the same vein as his teammate Kevin Randleman..its how good could he have been.

He first fought after his 7th place finish at the 96' olympics in freestyle. I believe he said 3-4 weeks of NHB training and such before taking his first fight. Much of his training was him and randleman working wrestling at Steelwood(OSU's former wresting facility) and lifting at a local gym. He was a gifted athlete and enhanced, which worked both for and against him.Many remember him hitting a head and arm finish on Dan Severn by pure might, and of course the times he'd completely gas out. Carrying around that much muscle isn't ideal for 15+ mins of fighting.

Coleman's shining light was of course his first UFC heavyweight title and his historic 2000 Pride F/C tournament win. I believe he enlisted Pat Miletich for that camp and actually stayed in camp for 8-12 weeks or so. He fought well and his stamina looked good too. He didn't necessarily have the toughest road to the finals but he stopped Igor Vovchanchyn by brutal knees to end the show. Most memorable was his post win hulk out which saw Coleman uncessfully try to climb thru the ropes, then bounce off them as he celebrated.

For his time he was good, never great, but always showed up to fight.
 
MCS said:
Likely would've beat Bas. IDK how those sparring sessions with Randleman went, I believe early on Kevin would get the better of him, Mark would have to outlast. But I believe Kerr was the best guy from Hammerhouse, when at his best. Bigger and stronger, could avoid getting subbed, like with the ADCC success and looking unstoppable in MMA before the wall.

Sylvia fight would depend on Coleman's cardio. Sylvia could go 5 rounds. If Mark can't keep taking him down Tim TKO's him. Mir would depend on Mark's success with GnP from half guard. But he was a full guard headbutt/GnP fighter. Mir was good in full guard, but vulnerable to GnP from half guard. DC loves half guard, talks about what a huge advantage for control it is. But DC can grapple as well.

Coleman had no talent for stand-up. Too stiff. Too reliant on getting on top to GnP. He was good for his time, but not for more modern times.
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Perhaps BJJ would be better so Mark could go for arm-triangle chokes or north-south chokes
 
Coleman was an absolute savage. Even in his final run in the UFC he mopped the floor with a much younger Bonnar who is a Renzo Gracie black belt and Bonnar never came close to catching old Coleman in anything. Got absolutely handled. Coleman probably had the best power double ever. If gou put a prime Coleman or Randleman in a modern day camp like AKA where they could round out their game and get some sports science behind them they would be better than guys like Derrick Lewis for sure.
 
GOAT. said:
Coleman was an absolute savage. Even in his final run in the UFC he mopped the floor with a much younger Bonnar who is a Renzo Gracie black belt and Bonnar never came close to catching old Coleman in anything. Got absolutely handled. Coleman probably had the best power double ever. If gou put a prime Coleman or Randleman in a modern day camp like AKA where they could round out their game and get some sports science behind them they would be better than guys like Derrick Lewis for sure.
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This is a given. But the war cry was always the same. They literally couldn't do much else. So as soon as they were figured out technique wise, they were relying on athleticism pretty much. The Hammer House was it'a own style of fighting and they were loyal to that.
 
These guys Coleman and Kerr, were the apex predators at their respective times.. You have to look at there time periods and those other fighters around at that time, also when you look back, say you are just getting into MMA the last 10 years or so, you havnt seen these fighters fight in real time period.. it makes the perceptive on these fighters a little different to people who have grow through this sport and basically seen the MMA/NHB game grow up from its infancy, some of us luck boys have watched since the beginning.. Im not saying we no everything about MMA .. but we saw the birth of the sport and the beginnings and watched these beasts in real time.. that means something..
I would have stepped into a thousands cages with Royce over one time with Coleman and Kerr.. these guys in their prime were scary AF
 
AdamantiumPimmel said:
very good, he's the reason why headbuts and knees on the ground are banned
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Gan McGee is the reason knees on the ground are banned. He mauled some horribly overmatched opponent in a smaller event in Atlantic City in what I think was the first officially sanctioned event in NJ, and they banned knees immediately afterward.
 
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