Mark Coleman Appears Before NSAC, Approved For UFC 100

Rumor swirled today concerning the status of Mark Coleman's license to fight in the state of Nevada.  Several stories suggested that the NSAC was planning on denying Coleman a license to fight Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100 in July, due to a combination of his age and his poor performance in recent fights.

MMA Junkie is now reporting that while Coleman did indeed appear before the NSAC this week at their request, they were satisfied with his answers to their questions and granted him a license to fight on the UFC 100 card.  Normally, the NSAC grants fighters a license to compete for a full year, but Coleman's license is "limited", and only valid for his one upcoming fight

All fighters aged 35 years or older are asked to at least call the commission to discuss any concerns the group may have.

"We mentioned that [Coleman] had quite a layoff before he fought Rua," Kizer said. "We mentioned that he kind of ran out of gas in the third round and got stopped.

"Obviously with his age and his inactivity and the fact that he's lost four of his past six bouts, there was definitely a concern. [The NSAC] asked, 'What's your plan for this fight?' And to his credit, he owned up and said, 'Look, I need to train harder and be in better shape.

In the hearing, Coleman announced his plans to train in Las Vegas for the fight, and mentioned several options for training camps and partners:

'My plan is I'm moving to Las Vegas this weekend and I have offers to train with Frank Mir's group. I have offers to train with Wanderlei Silva's group. I have offer to train with Randy Couture's group. I definitely plan on taking advantage of that, and I plan to be here from this upcoming weekend through the fight. I'll be Las Vegas, and I'll be training constantly here with one or more of those groups.'

When commenting on the nature of the one-fight license approved for Coleman, NSAC director Keith Kizer noted that he believed the matchup with Bonnar was even, and that the NSAC would re-evaluate Coleman's status after the fight:

"Because of the age and the inactivity, the commission decided to give [Coleman] the limited license, limited to one bout," Kizer said. "At the end of the day, that's how you best can observe a fighter, is in actual competition. He'll be fighting Stephan Bonnar, and I think that's a fair matchup for both gentlemen. We'll be good to go come July 11."


"We'll get to see how he does, and I'm sure he'll be the first to criticize or complement himself," Kizer said. "He'll know better than anyone how he does after the fight."

Many MMA fans and journalists were questioning the purpose of this fight when it was announced, with some suggesting that a way-past-his-prime Coleman would simply make for a punching bag against Bonnar.  It's impressive that the NSAC discussed some of the very same concerns and decided to speak to Coleman about them.  Major props to Coleman as well for convincing the commission that he's still able to compete in modern MMA.  It's also interesting to hear about the one-fight limited license, as I don't recall this being discussed previously.