Mark Coleman lays the Hammer down on Stephan Bonnar’s UFC career
Published by Zach Arnold on July 13th, 2009 in Current Events

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“Ha ha ha! That’s why I still do this! All you fuckers! No feeling in the world like this. Nothing!”

That’s how Mark Coleman greeted fans and media writers backstage after winning his fight against Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100. Coleman was pissed off at the fact that he was being called an old man and was a +300 underdog to Bonnar who was a -450 favorite. That’s right — Stephan Bonnar was as big of a favorite at UFC 100 to win his fight as Georges St. Pierre, Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Jon Fitch. Bonnar was an even bigger ‘lock’ than Brock Lesnar. Coleman had every right to be insulted at the fact that Bonnar, coming off a horrible loss to Jon Jones, was such a prohibitive favorite.

There was a real sense of pride from Coleman after he won his fight relatively easily. Coleman had a war with Mauricio Shogun in which both men were exhausted and Shogun managed to pull off the win against a very game Coleman. For casual fans, both Shogun and Coleman were in an epic battle. In the eyes of hardcore fans, it was two men who were former shells of themselves. Coleman wanted to prove his doubters wrong and show that at age 44 he can still hang and still be a contender. It may be harder for someone like him to keep cutting weight to make Light Heavyweight, but clearly you cannot question his work ethic or his ability to do the things needed to win.

In an official UFC media interview after the fight, Coleman ranked his win over Bonnar as one of the best in his career.

“Right now I have to say number one. I got to say this is number one because you know I had a lot of doubters, I can’t stand being called an old man, you call me any fucking thing you want but I can’t stand being called an old man so I had to shut a lot of people up. I may be 44 but there’s been reasons why I got tired, distractions, I didn’t train hard enough, if I put the time in I can compete with anybody. I was about 70% tonight. I’m going to go back home, continue to build on this base, I’m going to come back I’m going to be a factor in this division, I guarantee it. I can get a lot better. I’m just learning.”

In going through all of the various audio and video clips of interviews heading into UFC 100, there was one interesting thing happening in relation to the Coleman/Bonnar fight. Bonnar did an interview with Yahoo’s Steve Cofield in which he told Steve that he had to move out of Xtreme Couture and set up camp at the new Tapout facility. Why? Because Shawn Tompkins decided to train Mark Coleman and thus the Xtreme Couture staff was split up between the two fighters. Coleman alluded to this in his post-fight interview.

“Great camp, Shawn Tompkins elite trainer, everybody in Vegas treated me so well, the fans were great, it means so much more when you work this hard and have people helping you, I didn’t want to lose because of these people, McKenzie & Morgan my daughters I haven’t seen you in 70 days, that’s been the hardest part, Daddy did this for you, you know I showed you if I work hard your Daddy’s a winner, girls. I feel great.”

Coleman’s comments should definitely raise some questions about not only Xtreme Couture but also Shawn Tompkins. Factually-speaking, what does it say that Couture and Tompkins decided to train Coleman and leave Bonnar to train on his own with a couple of Xtreme Couture guys at another gym? Isn’t that a proverbial slap in the face to Bonnar? What kind of a statement are you making to Stephan Bonnar by saying that you’re choosing to train a 44-year old MMA fighter over a guy who, on paper, supposedly might have a longer shelf life in MMA?

The notion of splitting up a training camp in order for a fight to happen is something that Jon Fitch warned about recently in a Versus.com interview. Fitch said that if he was offered a fight against fellow AKA team Mike Swick that he would refuse to take it.

“We train as a team. If two people from our team were to fight each other, who trains with what training partner? Who trains with what trainer? Who gets to use the gym and when? It just doesn’t add up. We’d have to tear our team apart and split our camp in half in order to make one fight happen. It’s not worth it. We’ve worked very hard the last seven, eight years to build up AKA and we’re not going to throw it away for one fight.”

In the end, training with Tompkins clearly helped out Coleman and the veteran picked up the big win. Coleman said the training made all the difference in the world.

“(In the past) I didn’t prepare like a champion, I didn’t like train like a champion, that’s why I look like shit a lot of times. When I put my mind to it, I’m fresh I’m fast I’m quick I punch hard, I’m good. If I put in the time, I’m going to be a factor. Like I said, I’m about 70%. You give me another 3 months of injury-free training and I’m going to be even better yet. Everybody else better watch out because the Hammer’s back.”

There was a humorous exchange backstage between Coleman and a media interview when discussing the Shogun fight, which clearly remains a sore spot for the Hammer.

“I didn’t look tired, what are you talking about?”

The interviewer started getting cold feet.

“I mean that’s what some people would thought, I thought that you look tired.”

Coleman was not taking any of this laying down.

“I always look tired. I played possum. OK? Well, listen. He worked his ass off in that first round. He worked his ass off, he tired himself out just like Shogun. Nobody gave me any credit, nobody gave me any credit for wearing Shogun out. They just said he was out of shape. Well, I’m a different breed when I’m on you, when I’m on you I’m a different type of man. I’m a world-class wrestler and Bonnar, he emptied his tank in that first round and that’s why I was able to come back and win that fight. I was fresh. I got better as the fight went on.”

For Bonnar, this is likely the end of the road for him as a UFC fighter. It’s a tough pill to swallow for a guy who has been viewed as a “Mount Rushmore” type figure amongst the modern UFC fan base that looks at his fight against Forrest Griffin as the Holy Grail of UFC fights. Nevertheless, Bonnar’s had a very rocky, up-and-down stint in UFC including a performance-enhancing related suspension for Boldenone.

Mark Coleman may have officially hammered the nail in Bonnar’s UFC career.

One young UFC fighter who has a lot to look forward to, however, is Jon Jones, a man who made a big name for himself against Bonnar with some unique Greco Roman throws in the cage. Jones was assigned a fight against former heavyweight Jake O’Brien at 205 pounds. Jones was able to pull out the victory and get a win over an opponent he should beat. He took care of business.

“My strategy going with going in the fight with Jake O’Brien you know we knew that he’s a former heavyweight, he cuts a lot of weight and that fatigue could possibly be an issue with him,” Jones said in an official UFC media interview after the fight. “So, you know, I realized right away when he was throwing his punches he was holding his breath and kind of grunting and you can’t do that in a fight, you know, you got to really breathe as you punch so I knew that he would be running out of breath sooner or later, and so my main focus was just to kind of pick him apart a little bit, time that shot, but mainly just pick him apart a little bit and sense him out, you know allow him to get tired and just breathe, dance around, you know pick my shots. And you know we were working a lot from the front headlock position, you know Jake’s a great wrestler so you know I’ve had a lot of submissions that I practiced and one you know came out, it felt great.”

What makes Jones such a rising up-and-comer is that he’s not only a great talker, but he’s also very flashy and has an exciting fight style. You just never know what he is going to do next. That unpredictability factor makes him dangerous.

“I have a lot of tricks. I have a lot of tricks. I think I might be you know starting to have too many tricks and I need to just go back to the basics and really master maybe like three or four moves. I have a lot of moves up my sleeve and as you seen tonight you know I was trying things that I’ve been doing in practice but when you’re in a fight you know it doesn’t work like you want. I think in the future I’m going to train and just work a few techniques and master a few techniques.”

Some fighters focus intently on studying video of their opponents. Other fighters don’t watch any video at all and focus on their training only. In the case of Bones Jones, he got his most recent inspiration on video from the legendary Muhammad Ali. (And I’m not talking about the upcoming Tyson/Ali boxing video game.)

“Definitely, you know I watched him a lot getting ready for this fight. I knew Jake O’Brien was going to be a boxer, you know I have fast hands and long hands so I’m just trying to master things, I’m trying to work on things. I’m really didn’t feel good at all about the performance and the way it was going until I actually finished it. I felt like I was getting hit a lot and being sloppy, so I’m going to just start sparring more. I did look up to Muhammad Ali a lot in this fight, you know, just the way he dances with his feet and you know the way he pops that jab out there. I just got a lot to learn, man.”

Jones recently made a lot of waves on the Internet with comments he made about UFC Light Heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida. Some fighters say that they don’t pay attention to what is said about them online, but clearly Jones is an exception to that rule.

“I’m not really worried about Lyoto Machida, you know I guess I talked about him in an interview and it got a lot of hype, me thinking that I can beat him type of thing. Just as a champion in my mind and a champion mindset I believe that you know people should think they can beat anyone, you know, so if Lyoto’s not the champ by the time I get there whoever it may be I’m going to think, I’m going to beat him. So I have nothing to say about Lyoto Machida, he’s a great champion and pretty much you know whoever has the belt you know when I get to that level I’ll be ready and I say that I can beat anyone, it’s just the attitude that I think you should have. As far as where I am, I have a lot of learning to do you know I wasn’t really impressed with that fight out there just now, I just thought I was getting hit a lot and the objective is to hit and not be hit so I just think that I have a lot of learning to do and I’m just going to keep working.”