Who Am I?Mark "The Hammer" Coleman (born December 20, 1964) is an American mixed martial arts competitor, former NCAA National Champion Wrestler from Ohio State University, and former Olympic amateur wrestler. Coleman is credited with proving the ability of wrestlers to dominate in the developing sport of mixed martial arts, and with being the inventor of the strategy that came to be known as "ground and pound".[2]
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Coleman began his career freestyle wrestling, going on to win an NCAA wrestling championship, and competing in the 1992 Summer Olympics, taking seventh place overall. Following his amateur career, Coleman made the transition to the then-new sport of mixed martial arts, winning his first two tournaments, UFC 10 where he beat defending champion and fellow superstar, Don Frye and UFC 11 in 1996, and becoming the UFC's first Heavyweight Champion when he submitted Dan Severn via neck crank at UFC 12. Coleman lost his title to Maurice Smith, was knocked out by Pete Williams, and lost a decision to Pedro Rizzo in his last UFC fight.
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From 2000 through 2006, Coleman resurrected his career with PRIDE Fighting Championships in Japan, while also making appearances with the professional wrestling promotion HUSTLE in Japan. He won the Pride 2000 open-weight Grand Prix tournament defeating Masaaki Satake, Akira Shoji, Kazuyuki Fujita, and Igor Vovchanchyn. Coleman was once again at the top of the mixed-martial arts world. He continued to thrive the next 5 years facing top flight competition and maintaining his reputation as on of the toughest heavyweights in the world. He appeared with teammate, Kevin Randleman, on the US PPV broadcast of the final Pride event, Kamikaze, stating that he intended to keep fighting, even though many have said that his career is winding down and he should retire.
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More recently, in July of 2007, in an interview with MMAWeekly.com, Coleman stated his intentions to return to fight at least one more time in The Ultimate Fighting Championship. He believes that even though he is 4-4 in his last 8 matches, he has more fight in him, and he even goes as far as to state that he would match up well against current UFC Heavyweight Champion, Randy Couture. Mark Coleman is also the founder of Team Hammer House, a mixed martial arts team and training facility in Columbus, Ohio.
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