Mark Coleman is the Brett Farve of MMA

It is official: Mark Coleman is the Brett Farve of MMA.  The funny thing is, he doesn’t mind.

In a recent interview with USA Today, Coleman was asked when he could see himself hanging up the gloves.  To which he responded:

I’ll go until I can’t. I really admire guys that take it until the end: Randy Johnson; Jamie Moyer; Brett Favre… I just (see no) reason to hang it up at this point in my career. I can still compete with these guys. I’m going to take it as long as I can. I don’t see the ending being any time soon. 

Mark Favre

Now, before you piss yourself, the guy does make a point.  There’s no explicit reason why Coleman deserves all the catcalls for retirement.  It has been over two years since we’ve last seen him fight (which could either be an excellent or terrible sign);  and his last fight was a loss to Fedor’I Beat Everyone’ Emelianenko, so we can’t read into that too much. Our verdict: For the first time in his career Mark Coleman is a dark-horse.

Coleman has lived out a storied career: he became the UFC’s first Heavyweight Champion, he’s widely considered the grandfather of Ground and Pound, and is a UFC Hall of Famer. Not too shabby of credentials.  The question we pose, is with a back-story like Coleman, does he really deserve to be shooed into the backroom, just to make room for some new blood?

We don’t believe so.  However, there are quite a few unanswered questions surrounding Coleman’s return:

• How will he do back in a cage? (He hasn’t fought in a cage since 1999, He had been fighting in Pride which uses a boxing style ring)
• How will Coleman deal with the ban on knee strikes to the head? (Knee strikes were arguable the reason Coleman won the 2000 Pride GP and they aren’t allowed in the UFC)  
• Was the first victory over ‘Shogun’ Rua a fluke? (He defeated Rua at Pride 31 thanks to a freak armbreak that Rua suffered)

While we don’t have the answers to these questions, we do know that Coleman’s return at this Saturday’s UFC 93 is surely going to be worth tuning in for.

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