Mark Coleman was a brute who never quit

modulus said:
He never really evolved and had it taken to him by a few (my favorite being the Pete Williams match).
Couture would be an example of a fighter who evolved and took it to Coleman.

Coleman never tested positive and I believe he claims he was always clean................ of course he also managed a heart attack at 55 years of age ((hard to understand why with all that clean living).

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I totally agree about Couture being a better example of evolving. That said, Coleman was tough, definitely tougher than his training partner Mark Kerr. Kerr had a lot of potential (and PEDs in his system), but he tended to fold once he faced adversity.
 
Coleman is an OG

He was also super old for a lot of his big fights. I think if you take a 21 year old Coleman and put him in there with the guys today he's gonna be right there at the top. Hell probably champ with how weak LHW is these days. No evolving necessary. Nobody is gonna do shit except get manhandled
 
samuelsoncast said:
I absolutely LOVED watching dangerous GnP wrestlers.

Fry. Severn. Coleman.
These guys were my imprinted idea of Murican tough guys. And proved it.

Don't seem to be many powerful GnP wrestlers these days.
What happened, America?
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The sport evolved. You can’t just take guys down and smash their face in as easily anymore.
 
NordWorld86 said:
Never really liked Mark while he was active, mostly because how he behaved when Shogun broke his arm,was total jackass
After when he retired and all,i can say he is a good guy,real legit old timer.Had top fights and was around in pride prime time.
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To be fair to Coleman I don't think he saw the injury, he should stop regardless but probably thought some kind of shenanigans were happening.
 
there's been a lot of guys bigger than Coleman, but i've never seen anyone else who was so natural using their brute strength besides Matt Hughes. just the way he grapples he's always manhandling his opponents. even when he was old and beyond washed, you could still see how strong he was with how he could still takedown guys much younger and bigger than he was. i know lots of people will say steroids but there were a ton of guys on steroids in Mark's heyday and none of them were as brutish as Coleman. even his daughters are jacked.
 
Tweak896 said:
Of all the wrestlers in MMA, Coleman has weirdly had the worst cardio. Maybe he was just older for all his fights? Just very strange to me, every other wrestler usually has cardio advantage.
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I will have to rewatch his fights against Mo Smith and Pete Williams but in those fights I believe Coleman held them down for like 15 or 20 minutes before he finally gassed and gave up those fights.

The rounds and time limits were different back then.

It may have been a different result if those fights had 5 minute rounds? A young prime Coleman may have been king of that format? He could take down anyone in the world and hold them down for a few minutes.

He definitely didn't have the cardio of Couture or Tito but he was also a lot bigger than them. Coleman was also almost always fighting other extremely talented fighters.

He gassed bad against Shogun but the man was very old at that point.

Coleman has also admitted to being an alcoholic most of his career.
 
StewDogg11 said:
The sport evolved. You can’t just take guys down and smash their face in as easily anymore.
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it's not just that. there is no influx of highly decorated American wrestlers coming into MMA anymore. when Coleman was active so was Mark Kerr, Darrell Gholar, Couture, Hendo, Severn, Don Frye, Kevin Jackson, Tom Erickson and those are just the ones off the top of my head. now we have ONE guy, Bo Nickal.
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
there's been a lot of guys bigger than Coleman, but i've never seen anyone else who was so natural using their brute strength besides Matt Hughes. just the way he grapples he's always manhandling his opponents. even when he was old and beyond washed, you could still see how strong he was with how he could still takedown guys much younger and bigger than he was. i know lots of people will say steroids but there were a ton of guys on steroids in Mark's heyday and none of them were as brutish as Coleman. even his daughters are jacked.
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It truly is fascinating. Kinda like Hendo's body being made of indestructible wood(like Schaub and Rogan were saying about Hendo and his masseuse). These old school legends were truly a different breed!

Coleman was Olympian, placed 2nd in the World Championships, and an NCAA champ. So a lot of that strength definitely comes from his wrestling background and technique.



but YES! There is something extra to Mark's strength! The man was truly stronger than everyone out there! He won fights by neck crank! I don't know why he is so much stronger than everyone but he somehow is.



I actually met Coleman once and somebody there asked him his favorite takedown. Coleman said "I liked the double leg because I just became so fucking strong when I would get in there..."
 
Tweak896 said:
Of all the wrestlers in MMA, Coleman has weirdly had the worst cardio. Maybe he was just older for all his fights? Just very strange to me, every other wrestler usually has cardio advantage.
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because of his style. look at it, everything is 100% all the time. there's no feinting, there's no misdirection he's a very simple fighter. he's coming in to grab you, take you down, and headbutt/punch/squeeze the life out of you as hard as he can ALL the time.
 
Big Tuppy Hole said:
Would have looked alot like Couture vs Randleman.

I would have liked to see these guys fight Erickson in his prime. Once again Kev stepped up and got blasted
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well Couture won that in 3rd so but Randleman dominated so lol hard to know what that means.
 
mark was a beast. i think my favorite coleman moment was when he just kneed alan goes unconscious. just knees straight to the top of his head lol. brutal
 
StewDogg11 said:
The sport evolved. You can’t just take guys down and smash their face in as easily anymore.
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The overall quality of skills has evolved, absolutely but on the flip side, the numbers of high level top game wrestlers have faded away. Ground and pound absolutely isn't a lost approach but those who are capable seems to have fizzled.
 
Pancake Sprawl said:
it's not just that. there is no influx of highly decorated American wrestlers coming into MMA anymore. when Coleman was active so was Mark Kerr, Darrell Gholar, Couture, Hendo, Severn, Don Frye, Kevin Jackson, Tom Erickson and those are just the ones off the top of my head. now we have ONE guy, Bo Nickal.
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i agree and I blame the rules. They’ve repeatedly taken away a grappler’s advantages. Khabib came up with a way to execute control over his opponents legs, but his opponents still got away with fence grabs a lot. Knees to downed opponents is a big one. Headbutts. Standup if they are blanketing (which allows a wrestler to rest, after working for a takedown). So a lot of wrestlers work a lot on their boxing.
 
modulus said:
He never really evolved and had it taken to him by a few (my favorite being the Pete Williams match).
Couture would be an example of a fighter who evolved and took it to Coleman.

Coleman never tested positive and I believe he claims he was always clean................ of course he also managed a heart attack at 55 years of age ((hard to understand why with all that clean living).

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Coleman's pretty open about his PED use, even recently talked about the stack he was on at the early UFCs.

Still an absolute beast, training right now in his late 50s with a double hip replacement and who knows what other long term damange.
 
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