Mark Coleman

From 2008 to 2010, Coleman was a usual member of Inoki Genome Federation, wrestling names like Naoya Ogawa, Tadao Yasuda and Shinichi Suzukawa.

Two years later, Coleman returned to Hustle under the masked persona "Coleman", teaming up with the superhero-like team of Randleman, Kintaman and Kurodaman. Their biggest victory was when Coleman and Randleman faced the trio of Giant Vabo, Kohei Sato and Tajiri and won the match despite the numeric disadvantage. Mark's last match in Hustle was in July 2007, leaving the promotion again afterwards.

On October 21, 2006, Mark Coleman again faced Pride heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko at Pride's first American show, Pride 32: The Real Deal, and lost via submission (armbar) at 1:17 of round two.

In June 2006, it was announced that Coleman was one of the new coaches in the International Fight League, but unable to assemble a team, he was replaced by Ken Shamrock. Coleman acknowledges former UFC Welterweight Champion and UFC Lightweight Champion B.J. Penn as his idol in the sport of mixed martial arts.

Coleman returned to the Pride ring in February 2005, this time facing Mirko Cro Cop at Pride 29: Fists of Fire. Suffering the second knockout of his career, the Hammer fell to strikes by Cro Cop in the first round. In November 2005, Mark Coleman appeared in Bushido Europe-Rotterdam Rumble, Europe's first Bushido event, and choked out Milco Voorn at 0:56 of the first round.

Between training fighters and spending time with his family, the Hammer was now fighting roughly once a year. He returned to competition to take place in the Pride 2004 Heavyweight Grand Prix, as the returning Grand Prix champion in the Open Weight Division. His first round match at Pride Total Elimination 2004 was against Pride heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko. In what turned out to be a short bout, Coleman was submitted by armbar at 2:11 of the first round, eliminating him from the tournament.

In 2004, Coleman started wrestling for Hustle and its partner promotion Pro Wrestling Zero-One. He debuted in the first as part of Generalissimo Takada's villainous faction Monster Army, going against babyface Toshiaki Kawada in a singles match which Mark lost by TKO. Coleman continued teaming up with other Monster Army wrestlers, including Dan Bobish, Commander An Jo and Giant Silva, but he was kicked out of the stable after failing to defeat top face Naoya Ogawa, becoming a babyface himself. Coleman then went free and ended up joining Wataru Sakata's team after losing a bout to him. Coleman and Sakata were successful as a tag team, but it was dissolved after Coleman left the promotion in 2005.

Coleman won the Pride 2000 Open Weight Grand Prix tournament defeating Masaaki Satake, Akira Shoji, Kazuyuki Fujita, and Igor Vovchanchyn. The Hammer's training and 2000 tournament victory are depicted in the documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.

In December 2000, Coleman had his first professional wrestling match when he was invited to the event Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2000, teaming up with Mark Kerr to defeat Takashi Iizuka and Yuji Nagata. He would also appear for New Japan Pro Wrestling, defeating Nagata in a singles match. In 2002, Coleman would appear in All Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle-1 project, teaming up with Kevin Randleman to face Hiroshi Hase and Satoshi Kojima in a losing effort, and later Jan the Giant Convict and Singh the Giant Convict in a victory, with Coleman himself pinning Singh with a hurricanrana.

From 1999 through 2006, The Hammer continued his career with Japanese promotion, Pride Fighting Championships while also making appearances with the professional wrestling promotion HUSTLE.

At UFC 109, Coleman faced fellow UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture, after originally being scheduled to meet at UFC 17 in 1998 twelve years prior, in which an injury forced Couture to drop out of the fight. Coleman went on record, multiple times during the build-up for the fight, in which he claimed this was his dream bout. After being outboxed on the feet, Coleman was taken down and defeated shortly after by (Rear Naked Choke) at 1:09 in round 2. The bout marked the first time two UFC Hall of Fame inductees had fought.

Following his amateur career, Coleman made the transition to the then-new sport of mixed martial arts, winning his first two tournaments in dominating fashion, including a win over UFC 8 champion Don Frye at UFC 10 in 1996, and becoming the first UFC Heavyweight Champion after submitting UFC Superfight Champion Dan Severn via neck crank submission at UFC 12.

He continued to wrestle for Miami University, in Ohio, where he was a two time Mid-American Conference wrestling champion and earned his first All-American honors in 1986. In his senior year, he transferred to The Ohio State University and won an NCAA championship in 1988. Out of college, he started as an assistant coach at his alma mater. Additionally, he was awarded a spot on the US Wrestling team, placing second (100 kg) at the 1991 FILA Wrestling World Championships in Varna, Bulgaria, and placing seventh overall in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. He participated 1996 Olympic Trials, but self-claimed lack of focus on wrestling hindered his performance, resulting to a loss in the semifinals.

At UFC 82, Mark Coleman was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, making him the 5th inductee. Coleman announced that he was not retiring and would return to the octagon to fight Brock Lesnar on August 9 in Minneapolis at UFC 87. However, Coleman injured his knee while training, and was forced to pull out of the event. Heath Herring replaced Coleman for the fight.

Mark Daniel Coleman (born December 20, 1964) is an American retired mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, former NCAA collegiate wrestler and former Olympic amateur wrestler. Known as The Hammer, he was the UFC 10 and UFC 11 tournament champion, the first UFC Heavyweight Champion, and the Pride Fighting Championships 2000 Open Weight Grand Prix champion. At UFC 82 Coleman was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. At the age of retirement he was taking 150,000 USD salary per year.

Coleman was born in Fremont, Ohio, U.S. in 1964. He began freestyle wrestling as a teenager and in 1981 was the first state champion wrestler for Saint Joseph Central Catholic High School (Fremont, Ohio). He then finished second in his sophomore year before claiming his second state championship in 1983.