6. Mark Coleman
To many Mark Coleman is the “Godfather of Ground and Pound”, and the first of his discipline to prove how competitive wrestlers could be in MMA. To me he will always be the “Godfather of Gassing Out” and the first guy to show how easy it is to lose when you are exhausted. He is a legend however, if it wasn’t for Coleman we may have never seen wrestlers like Randy Couture in the UFC.
The first time Coleman fought 3x in one night was the UFC 10 tournament. On that night he defeated Moti Horenstein, Gary Goodridge and then Don Frye in the finals. Not too shabby.
After losing 3 straight UFC fights from 97-99, Coleman took his talents to Japan and Pride FC.
He would fight 3x in one night again during Pride’s 2000 Openweight Grand Prix. On May 1st 2000, Coleman defeated Akira Shoji, Kazuyuki Fujita and Igor Vovchanchyn to win the tournament.
