News & Notes
100 greatest UFC fights
As a lead-in to Saturday’s UFC 100 pay-per-view event, Spike TV will air a five-hour marathon of “UFC’s Ultimate 100: Greatest Fights.”
As part of the special, fans were able to rank nearly 200 of the top fights in UFC history, and the results are rolled out in the highlights special. New installments of the show air through Thursday this week, but you can catch all five episodes back-to-back Saturday starting at 5 p.m.
The early favorite to win? An epic 2005 fight between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar that concluded the first season of the UFC’s popular reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter.”
The only downside to the special is that fighters such as Tito Ortiz and Frank Shamrock — who currently are on the outs with UFC management — weren’t in the list of available choices. (Unless, of course, either was the losing fighter in the listed bout.)
Honorary ring girl
Everything is a little glitzier for UFC 100, and the group of “ring girls” is no exception.
The organization announced that Holly Madison, a former Playboy model and star of E!’s “The Girls Next Door,” will be an honorary ring girl for Saturday’s event.
The UFC has a strong base of celebrity fans. Among them is Madison, who’s currently in Las Vegas doing publicity for the event.
She’ll join regular eye-candy Arianny Celeste, Edith Labelle and Logan Stanton (in traditional ring-girl attire) for Saturday’s one-night-only affair.
LAS VEGAS — Mark Coleman won an NCAA national wrestling championship at Ohio State, represented the U.S. wrestling team in the 1992 Summer Olympics, won the UFC’s first-ever heavyweight title, and earned an induction into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2008.
But Coleman (15-9), who fights fellow light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar (11-5) Saturday, July 11, at UFC 100 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, still points to his first Ohio high school state championship as one of his proudest moments.
Coleman, who lives in Columbus, won the state wrestling title at Saint Joseph Central Catholic High School in Freemont.
“It was just surreal,” Coleman said. “It was an emotional high that I’d only feel a few more times in my life.”
Saturday’s UFC 100 event could provide yet another opportunity for the 44-year-old, the second-oldest fighter (next to Randy Couture) on the UFC’s roster. Facing one of the UFC’s most popular fighters on the night’s nontelevised preliminary card, Coleman knows he needs a win to avoid a possible release from the UFC.
“This is a huge fight for me,” Coleman said. “It’s the first time in my career I’ve felt like it’s a make-or-break fight. I have to win. If I lose, I’m probably done with the UFC, but I’m not done with fighting.”
Coleman was one of the UFC’s first true superstars after winning single-day, eight-man tournaments at UFC 10 and UFC 11 in 1996 and the organization’s first heavyweight title in 1997.
But Coleman would soon leave to fight in the more lucrative Japanese-based PRIDE Fighting Championships, which was the UFC’s biggest rival.
Coleman flourished in the organization, winning a coveted “Openweight Grand Prix” title in 2000, but the UFC ultimately purchased and disbanded the fight promotion. Officials immediately stocked the UFC with PRIDE fighters, but Coleman wasn’t one of them.
“Maybe it was punishment for fighting for their rival,” Coleman said. “They tried to get me back a couple years before (the purchase), but I decided to stay with PRIDE.”
It’d be a year before Coleman would finally get a contract, and he said no hard feelings persist. Oddsmakers have tapped him a heavy underdog.
“I used to be able to beat my opponents by outworking them,” Coleman said. “That hadn’t been the case recently, though. I’d stop before a workout should have been over.”
This time, though, Coleman left Ohio and has spent the past 80 days working with the sport’s elite in Las Vegas.
“I cut out the distractions. I’m focused. I think you’ll see a difference.”
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