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One of the all-time greats in mixed martial arts, Mark Coleman has been a no-nonsense, no-gimmick competitor, and one of the first who made the conversion from a traditional amateur wrestling background to the wild world of MMA, thus helping to blaze a trail for grapplers for years to come.

Coleman, a native of Fremont, Ohio, originally attended college at the University of Miami in Ohio, and was a two-time all-Mid American Conference selection. Before his senior season, he transferred to Ohio State University, where he went on to win an NCAA championship, then went on to the Olympic Trials in 1992 and won a spot on the United States team. Coleman went to Barcelona and though he did not win a medal, he took seventh place in the freestyle competition.

Coleman did not immediately go into pro wrestling, and there was not yet an Ultimate Fighting Championship. Instead, he continued to wrestle in the amateur ranks, in one of his matches actually scoring a win over Kurt Angle, who later won the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) heavyweight title.

Coleman discovered MMA in 1996, and entered UFC 10 with something unusual for contestants in the organization at the time - lofty amateur wrestling credentials. In his first shot out of the box, he was successful, beating Gary Goodridge and Don Frye to win the championship. Although it is not altogether clear, it is widely believed that in that competition Coleman was the employ a tactic that came to be known as the “ground-and-pound,’ in which he would get his opponent to the ground and land strikes to the head, almost as if a pro wrestler might. This technique combined elements of wrestling and boxing, though it was not necessarily part of traditional martial arts. In that way it was a pretty good equalizer.

To prove his first win was no fluke, Coleman further affirmed his status as a new king of the UFC with his victory in the very next event (UFC 11), where he won two fights and in an anti-climax not worthy of the significance of his feat, he scored a walkover win over the injured Scott Ferrozzo in the finals.

Then Coleman turned around and made it a “hat trick” of sorts in UFC 12, though this time it was with a different twist. The UFC, ready to ditch the straight tournament format, decided to move forward with championships in newly-established individual weight divisions. Coleman thus had an opportunity for a landmark win, and accomplished this by choking out the estimable Dan Severn to become the UFC’s very first heavyweight champion.

After that, he hit a wall.

Coleman wore his crown proudly, but lost the title on his first defense, as Maurice Smith beat him on a decision in a match that lasted 21 total minutes, including a couple of overtime periods. The, in UFC 17, Coleman completely ran out of gas and, riddled with fatigue, absorbed a tremendous kick to the face by Pete Williams and sustained a knockout defeat. Following another loss, this time a decision to Pedro Rizzo, it looked like it might be the end for Mark Coleman.

Coleman wound up being reborn in the Japan-based PRIDE organization, which signed him in 1999, even though he lost his debut there to Nobuhiko Takada. In 2000 PRIDE held its first-ever Grand Prix tournament. This event took place over two different dates, in order to conduct a first round to thin out the field before bring the cream of the crop back for the championship four months later.

Coleman got past his first-round assignment, then made his way through three different opponents in the final round, finishing with a TKO over Igor Vovchanchyn to capture the Grand Prix title, giving him another “first-ever” distinction.

The amazing comeback as complete. But Coleman’s career was not.

At PRIDE 16, Coleman engaged in a classic match with the brilliant Brazilian, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (the current interim UFC heavyweight champ), a great all-around master. The two went at it for six intense minutes, after which Nogueira caught Coleman in an armbar, which ended it and sent Coleman into two years’ retirement.

When he returned in June of 2003 for a rematch with Don Frye, the match, which ended in a decision win for him, was lackluster to the point where Coleman actually apologized to the fans afterward. By this time, Coleman was more or less a part-time fighter, putting an increasing amount of time into his training center, Team Hammer House, developing and/or refining the skills of a number of championship-level MMA performers.

Coleman competed a couple of times against perhaps the world’s finest mixed martial artists, Fedor Emilianenko, submitting to an armbar in the first round of an April 2004 bout, then suffering the same fate in October of 2006, this time lasting into the second round.

In between, he had his most bizarre encounter, with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, where, less than a minute into the bout, Rua fell on his arm and broke it when being taken down by Coleman. He may or may not have sought to tap out, but Coleman commenced with landing strikes upon him, tossing the referee out of the way int he process, in WWE-like fashion. That brought about another “pro wrestling moment,” as a full-scale brawl ensued, involving MMA champions Wanderlei Silva and Phil Baroni, who were working the corners of Rua and Coleman, respectively.

Coleman has seen it all and done it all, and has certainly done enough to cement a very real and special place in history. And the UFC will salute him with a place in its Hall of Fame at UFC 82 in Columbus, Ohio.