by Kendall Shields

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MMA Junkie, which seems to be first off the line on most newsworthy stories these days, is reporting that Mark Coleman will be inducted in the UFC Hall of Fame as part of next weekend’s UFC 82 in Coleman’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Coleman will become only the fifth member of the (strictly metaphoric) Hall, joining Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, and Randy Couture.

It’s perhaps unfortunate that this news comes at the same time that an ESPN.com article by Michael Woods quotes Dana White as saying, “Tank Abbott absolutely will be in our Hall of Fame,” which makes you wonder what, exactly (or even inexactly), the selection criteria might be. Cult hero though he may be, by what standard is a 9-14 fighter a Hall of Famer? And that’s not a misleading 9-14 in the way that Couture’s 16-8 or Coleman’s 15-8 can be misleading: Tank’s best win is over Cabbage. Cabbage. The complete list of Tank’s wins, for the curious: John Matua, Paul Varelans, Steve Jennum, Sam “The Experience” Adkins, Cal Worsham, Steve Nelmark, Yoji Anjo, and Hugo Duarte, in addition to the aforementioned Wesley Correira (to whom Tank also lost, it must be said in fairness to Cabbage). The combined win/loss record of that esteemed group: 57-66-3. Tank Abbott is pretty clearly not an all-time all-that-good, let alone an all-time great. No credible sports Hall would include a competitor on the level of Tank Abbott in it’s Hall of Fame, but Dana White insists that Abbott is a lock. It’s his Hall, I guess. What can you do?

I don’t mean to suggest this is personally upsetting, or anything. But it’s a shame that Mark Coleman’s induction comes at the very time that the UFC Hall of Fame is pretty clearly revealed to lack any real credibility (seriously, seriously: Tank Abbott). Because Mark Coleman, for all the goofiness that name calls to mind, was at one time the best we’d seen in MMA, a fighter who looked not just dangerous, but absolutely unstoppable.

Coleman’s credentials as an amateur are well documented: 1988 NCAA Division I champion, 1991 U.S. Nationals Champion, 2nd place at the 1991 World Championships, and a 7th place finish at the Barcelona Olympics. (Note that this information is available in a handy collectible wrestling card format for the grappling enthusiast on the go.) His MMA debut came at UFC 10, steamrolling Moti Horenstein and compelling Gary Goodridge to submit due to position (an act both shameful and completely understandable) before handing Don Frye his first loss in the tournament final. This was about as impressive a debut performance as was possible in the world of MMA in 1996, and he followed it only two months later with wins over Julian Sanchez and Brian Johnston to become UFC 11 tournament champion. Coleman was enormous, athletic, jacked out of his head on whatever, and seemingly too much for anyone in the sport to handle.

Then, of course, hard times, with losses to Maurice Smith (a landmark bout in the evolution of MMA, the striker reemerging as a threat to the grappler), Pete Williams, and Pedro Rizzo before leaving for the greener pa$ture$ of Pride at a time when the UFC was falling into disrepute and disrepair. This period of Coleman’s career is ably covered in John Hyams’ very fine 2002 documentary The Smashing Machine, which you can actually watch online here and here. Though mostly the story of Mark Kerr’s drug addiction and troubled relationship with a seemingly completely horrible woman (I absolve Mark Kerr of nothing), the film offers the compelling story of Mark Coleman’s return to the top of the sport with his 2000 Pride GP win over a stacked field. Yes, Coleman was lucky to have come into the GP’s final match relatively fresh after Kazuyuki Fujita’s corner stopped the bout as soon as it began, and no, wins over Masaaki Satake and Akira Shoji are maybe not the stuff of legend, but a convincing win over Igor Vovchanchyn in the year 2000 meant the world. It was, at the very least, a big step up from doing the honours for Nobuhiko Takada.

The Pride GP 2000 win was of course the pinnacle of Coleman’s career, and since then, there have been ups and downs. Actually, mostly downs: there’s of course no shame in decisive losses to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mirko Cro Cop, and Fedor Emilianenko, three of the sports most dominant fighters, but losses to all three showed quite clearly that the skillset Coleman brought to the table wouldn’t be enough to deal with a new generation of heavyweights. Coleman’s only wins since his GP championship have come against an undersized Allan Goes, a broken down Don Frye, and Milco Voorn (who you have never heard of). There is, of course, the Hammer House/Chute Boxe affair, which I prefer to call Shogungate (join me, won’t you?), in which a freak injury in the first minute of Coleman/Rua resulted in a broken arm for the Brazilian, a savage face-stepping for Wanderlei Silva in the aftermath (”You kick my face in the ground!”), and genuine hilarity for all who witnessed it.

There have been rumours of one last UFC run for Coleman, and who knows what this Hall of Fame induction augers? Is this the end that a Hall of Fame induction would suggest, or a way of launching that once-rumoured return, introducing Coleman to the The Ultimate Fighter generation of fans to whom Coleman is perhaps nothing more than the guy who got mashed by Fedor in Las Vegas, if he’s anything at all? I’m inclined to think it’s the former, but who knows? Let’s use this induction to look to the past, not the future, and appreciate that for all his legitimate accomplishments at the highest level of the sport, the best of Mark Coleman is inseparable from the most hilários of momentos hilários do vale-tudo.