There are many skeptics questioning Hall of Famer Mark Coleman's worthiness to headline UFC 109. He's too old, too one-dimensional, too poorly conditioned, not a serious contender, etc etc.
But no one was saying that in in 1996 when Mark Coleman made his UFC debut in one of the last eight man tournaments the UFC held.
Here's what Sergio Non said about the final fight of Mark Coleman's UFC debut:
Video cameras previously recorded a few instances of fights won with punches on the ground — Rickson Gracie's beatdown of Hugo Duarte on the beach comes to mind — but ground-and-pound as a distinct fighting style in modern MMA started with Coleman's debut at UFC 10.
The hulking All-American from Ohio State University continued down the wrestling path blazed by Dan Severn and added a barrage of punches, elbows and headbutts to brutalize opponents on the mat. Coleman bulldozed through the tournament field and capped it off with a pummeling of tough guy Don Frye that would qualify as first-degree assault if it happened outside the cage. Referee John McCarthy stopped the fight at the 11:11 mark after it became clear that the bloodied and bruised Frye could no longer offer any meaningful resistance.
Here's my take from last summer's top 50 MMA fights in History series:
This fight introduced the term "Ground and Pound" to the MMA universe. Coleman wasn't the first wrestler with serious amateur credentials to enter the UFC, that honor goes to Dan Severn. But Coleman was the first wrestler to combine his finely honed position control skills with a brutal and relentless striking attack on the ground. Watching him roll over Don Frye in the tournament finals, at a time when Don Frye's wrestling/boxing combo was state of the art left no doubt that a new era of MMA history had dawned. Still a fun fight to watch.
We talked last week about the "Coleman Rule", aka the prohibition on head butts in sanctioned MMA. It's a good rule for fighter safety, but I think of all the changes between the old No Holds Barred days and today's Unified Rules, it has the most impact on the ground game -- jiu jitsu doesn't really have a good answer for an attacker with good ground control who's willing and able to land a lot of mean headbutts.
Let's look at some gifs in the full entry.
Matt McEwan's review of UFC 10 from 411 Mania has a good narrative of the fight to put the gifs in context:
Coleman shoots right off the bat and Frye sprawls only to have Coleman squirt out the side and take his back. Frye manages to gain guard, but eats a bunch of shots. There looks to be a lot of submission openings, but Frye's one weakness is not seeing or capitalizing on them. To my untrained eyes, there looks to be good shots at armbars and chokes left open by Coleman's attack. Instead, we get Coleman raining down big blows.
Frye eventually gets to feet courtesy a sloppy head crank
by Coleman. Both guys look exhausted though as they start throwing on their feet. Coleman eats a punch but is able to take Frye down again. He lands more punches and opens Frye up enough that McCarthy stops to the fight to take a look at it. Big John takes the time to tell Frye to do something. Meanwhile, Coleman is exhausted, leaning over with hands on his knees and his head against the fence.On the restart, Coleman can not even keep hi hands up. Frye shoots this time but can not finish the takedown, as Coleman reverses it and ends up on Frye's back again. Elbows to the base of the neck set up a choke attempt, but Frye manages to roll into the top position. Coleman, while exhausted, is so strong he is able to simply stand up and lift Frye over his shoulder. Frye manages to hold the cage, otherwise he would have been brutally slammed here. Instead, Coleman ends up on top and lands a few more punches on the ground and is able to clear guard into side control. McCarthy pulls Coleman off after a couple of headbutts and the fight is over. Coleman finishes off his impressive debut by handing Frye his first loss and becoming the UFC X tournament champion.
Couple of things to note. In the first gif, watch the smoothness of Coleman's double leg. Frye is tired by that point after sustaining a lengthy beating on the ground, but still had a very quick sprawl. Coleman's shot off of ducking a punch is so fluid that Frye can't even get an underhook in to slow down the takedown.
Next note that Frye's guard wasn't terrible. He's got his knees high up in Coleman's armpits and, in the second gif, manages to use his right leg to create enought space between them to end the barrage of right hands Coleman was pounding him with.
And lastly, in the third gif, note how Coleman follows up a series of right hands with a nasty little headbutt to the chin that seems to really daze Frye. Coleman even leaves his feet to put everything into that headbutt. He's able to do that because he's established such a technically sound base by spreading his feet so far apart and standing up on his toes. It takes incredible skill and conditioning to maintain top control while battering someone, especially and experienced wrestler/judoka like Don Frye.
At the time, my understanding of the nuances of wrestling technique was nil so I simply thought that Coleman's size and strength were the key elements in his attack. Looking back, I see the fingerprints of a highly trained, extremely skilled martial artist.
Coleman had some ups and downs in his long career, but his PRIDE Grand Prix win in 2000 showed that his early run of success in the UFC was no fluke.
The last gif just lingers on exactly how brutal skull to skull contact can be.
Here's a good highlight reel of Coleman back in the day.