Mark Coleman – UFC Hall of Fame Fighter is Longtime Parrillo User

Longtime Parrillo product user Mark ‘The Hammer’ Coleman made an amazing comeback at UFC 100 held on July 11^th 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas when the 44-year old fighter won a three round unanimous decision over the highly regarded Stephan Bonnar. Coleman, who has fought his entire career as a heavyweight, made his second ever entry into the light heavyweight division to beat Bonnar.

Coleman, the fourth fighter in history to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, showed that his decade-long mixed martial arts fight career is far from over. The fight with Bonnar was an epic see-saw battle that lasted for

Mark Coleman

three five minute rounds and ended with all three judges awarding Mark the victory. Mark was understandably pleased with his performance and indicated he had approached his training for this fight far differently than in previous fights.

“I had the best training camp of my life leading up to this fight,” Coleman related, “I took seventy days – ten weeks – not a lot of time by training camp standards – and completely dedicated myself to my training.” Mark relocated to Las Vegas and spent a considerable amount of time working at another UFC Hall-of-fame athlete’s state-of-the-art Vegas training facility. “Randy Couture has a terrific gym dedicated to MMA style fight preparation; In Vegas I worked with a wide variety of coaches and training partners at Randy’s facility and at a few other gyms located in and around the Las Vegas area. This took me a little outside my comfort zone which turned out to be a good thing; I have basically trained myself over the years and by working with different coaches and training partners in new and different locations and situations, I was able to achieve a level of strength and condition that was past anything I’d attained in recent years.” Coleman attained a new level of athletic ability and combined his improved skill set with a dramatic bodyweight reduction. All in all this was new and exciting territory for the wily veteran. He virtually reinvented himself at an age when fight promoters and fans had pigeonholed the “ancient” fighter. “I think a lot of experts were surprised by my new look and my new and improved degree of conditioning. In a lot of ways I surprised myself.”

He had to overcome a highly touted fighter in the 34-year old Bonnar. Mark was completely complimentary of his veteran opponent. “Stephan Bonnar is one hell-of-a-fighter. He is 6-4, lean, conditioned and has an iron chin. As I found out, he hits incredibly hard. Thank God I worked as hard as I did for as long as I did and as intensely as I did – otherwise I would have been in trouble.” Mark weighed a razor-sharp 205 pounds and used Parrillo Products and nutritional tactics to enable him to trim away every vestige of body fat while retaining every bit of his hard earned power and muscle. “John Parrillo makes the best nutritional products on the face of the planet. Before a fight I virtually live on Parrillo products.” Mark uses nearly every product John makes. Here is a partial list of some of Mark’s favorite products: Maple-flavored Pancakes^™, English Toffee and Chocolate-flavored Chew Bars^™, Parrillo Creatine monohydrate^™, Natural E Plus^™, Bio-C^™, Joint Formula^™, Ultimate Amino Formula^™, Enhanced GH Formula^™, Advanced Lipotropic Formula^™, Liver Amino Formula^™, Muscle Amino Formula^™, Cappuccino-flavored Sports Nutrition Bars^™; French Toast and Graham Cracker-flavored Energy Bars^™, Layered Peanut Butter and Banana Protein Bars^™, Chocolate Hi-Protein powder^™, Chocolate Optimized Whey Protein powder^™, CapTri^®, Max Endurance Formula^™, Essential Vitamin Formula^™, Mineral-electrolyte Formula^™, Banana and Vanilla-flavored Parrillo Pudding^™. Mr. Coleman is a walking advertisement, a human billboard for Parrillo Performance Products. “John Parrillo has been super supportive of my fighting career over these many long years and I cannot say enough good things about him or his powerful products. I would suspect I have consumed hundreds of pounds of Parrillo Products over the past decade.”

Mark Coleman is, was and always has been an athlete. A star football player and wrestler in high school, Coleman decided to concentrate on wrestling and accepted a scholarship to Miami University in Ohio. He quickly emerged as one of the nation’s premier grapplers and won two Mid-American conference championships. By 1988 Mark had transferred to Ohio State and captured the biggest prize in collegiate wrestling: the NCAA Division I National Championship. His goal was to win an Olympic gold medal. His international wrestling career included a second place finish at the 1991 FILA World Championships. In 1992 Mark finished seventh in the Barcelona Olympic Games. He graduated with a degree in Education and became an assistant wrestling coach for Ohio State. In 1996 Mark decided to enter the fledgling world of mixed martial arts; the embryonic Ultimate Fighting Championships were being shown on cable TV and Mark, with his wrestling skills, size, power and speed, thought that he could do well in this format. “The first time I saw the UFC on TV, I knew immediately that was what I wanted to do.  It fit me perfectly.  If there had been Ultimate Fighting when I was a youngster, I would have been training for it right from the start. Once I saw the UFC and understood that this was real, I knew I was gonna do it immediately.” Coleman was accepted into the UFC and tore his way through every opponent he fought. He seized the UFC heavyweight title by defeating another wrestler, then UFC champion Dan Severn. Mark ripped Severn to pieces and ended the match with a brutal neck-crank submission. He became the undisputed King of mixed martial arts.

In 1999 Mark began competing in the Japanese PRIDE organization, both as a mixed martial artist and as a professional wrestler. The highlight of his long and distinguished PRIDE MMA career occurred in 2000 when he beat all comers in an open weight tournament to win the PRIDE Grand Prix. This was the biggest show in all of MMA and Mark beat the best in the world when he destroyed the up-until-then unbeatable Russian MMA star Igor Volchanian. Mark fought three bouts in the same night to win a six-figure purse! He submitted Igor with a rapid fire series of vicious knees to the head while pinning the powerhouse Russian to the mat. Mark eventually returned to the UFC when PRIDE was purchased by the UFC conglomerate. Things had changed over the years. Two of his favored fighting tactics – the head butt and knees thrown to the head while the opponent was pinned to the mat – were deemed so deadly and so effective that they were banned in the UFC. This took away two of the mightiest weapons in the Coleman arsenal. Mark was scheduled to make his UFC debut fighting the current heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. Mark suffered a serious training injury that forced his withdrawal. In about this same time he became the fourth fighter in history of the sport to be inducted into the Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Fame. His style was so distinctive and widely copied that it was given a name, “ground-and-pound.” Mark was typically modest about being recognized and inducted. “Being inducted in the UFC Hall of Fame was a tremendous honor. This is an extremely small club and to be included with fighters like Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn and Randy Couture was
gratifying.”

Mark has always had a terrific work ethic and his fight experience and his balance between power and stamina made him the ideal coach/trainer for younger fighters looking to break into the MMA world. Mark opened a MMA fight school in Columbus, Ohio, The Hammer House, that produced a series of top MMA fighters: men like Kevin “Monster Man” Randallman and Phil Barone. Over the years Mark developed a tremendous appreciation for the role of nutrition in the preparation and perfection of a top fighter. Nutrition became particularly critical when he decided to drop down into the 205 pound weight category. “When I started fighting in mixed-martial arts, at 240 pounds, I was as big as anyone I fought. Nowadays the heavyweights are much larger than in the mid-nineties. I had found that a good bodyweight for me, a good combination of power and condition, was in the mid-220 pound range. That made me considerably undersized compared to the modern heavyweights. I made a decision to drop down to 205 pounds and fight as a light heavyweight.” To pull off this feat, a man already super serious about nutrition needed to become even more exacting in his approach towards food and supplementation. For the past decade Mark Coleman has been an avid Parrillo Products user. When preparing for a fight he will consume gigantic amounts of Parrillo supplements. Prior to his highly publicized fight in 2006 (a loss in PRIDE to the world world’s greatest MMA fighter, Fedor Emelianenko) Coleman had a Parrillo order that shipped out weighing in excess of 200 pounds! “I virtually live on Parrillo supplements when I am preparing for a fight. I love the taste of all of John’s products; I love the potency; I love the effect they have on my body.”

There is no more demanding athletic activity than being a modern mixed martial arts fighter. The sheer volume of training is staggering: MMA fighters must work on stand up striking, they must work on grappling; they must work on submissions; they must work on conditioning, plus fit in strength training and cardio drills. Mark detailed his typical training day. “In preparation for a fight I will work out twice daily, each session lasting two to three hours…this is grueling and demanding. Not only does my body become fatigued and worn down, my body is continually battered and pummeled. After my first daily training session, I need nourishment. I come home and fire down a pile of Parrillo supplements, shower, take a nap and get ready for the day’s second session.” As difficult as Mark’s training has been in years gone by, the decision to compete in the 205 pound light heavyweight weight division made the already difficult even more so. “As I mentioned, when I first started MMA fighting I fought weighing 240+ pounds. A few years back I decided that I wanted to improve my conditioning and in order to do this I redoubled my dietary efforts. I ate super strict and approached nutrition with the same degree of attention and precision that a competitive bodybuilder would.” As a result, the 240+ Coleman revamped his physique and fought weighing 225. His new look was lean and fat free. He accomplished this at an age when most fighters were long since retired. Mark Coleman completely renovated his body yet again when a year ago the grizzled pro decided he would up the ante once again and drop his bodyweight even further: he would shed 20 additional pounds off his already ultra-lean body and compete weighing 205 pounds.

“As a wrestler you learn how to drop bodyweight in order to grapple in a lighter weight class. During my high school and college career I became adept at losing bodyweight prior to a competition. I decided to compete in the 205 pound class and my first outing was less than successful.” Mark’s debut as a UFC light heavyweight was an epic battle against the highly regarded Brazilian Chute Box fighter, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.  Fought in Dublin, Ireland at UFC 93, Mark battled Rua for three rounds in what the press called, “A war of attrition that will be remembered as a testament to will and guts from Coleman, who refused to stop fighting from the opening bell until the fight was stopped with 24 seconds left.” Mark was not pleased that the referee decided to stop the battle so close to the end. “The disappointing thing with the Shogun fight was the ending,” said Coleman. “I felt like I was down, but I definitely wasn’t out. If it went to a decision I could have accepted that, but the way the ref stopped the fight ruined the whole night. But anytime you can come out of a fight, especially at my age, with just some minor injuries, it’s not all that bad.” Mark was 44 years old and many fans and critics felt that his storied career was over. Mark felt differently. He felt that he still had room for improvement. When he was signed to fight UFC star Stephan Bonnard, he decided to recommit himself. “I have always lived and prepared for my fights in my native Columbus, Ohio. Part of the reason for my loss to Rua was cutting weight to fight in the 205 pound class. I knew that if I were to continue to fight at 205, I would need to develop some new and different training strategies.” He decided to relocate to the center of the MMA world: Las Vegas.

“My relocation to Las Vegas to prepare for the Bonnar fight was a big deal for me: I have two young daughters in Columbus and being away from them was difficult.” Mark’s kids are “the center of my life.” Mackenzie and Morgan are now 11 and 9 years old respectively and Mark felt they were old enough for him to sit them down and talk about his need to be absent from their lives for two months. “I went through ‘separation anxiety’ when I fought in Japan – it wasn’t good for me or for them; this time they were of an age where I could discuss the reasons for my being away and alert them to the length of my absence. It was a tremendous relief when they understood and gave me their blessing.” Mark is revitalized by his win and awaiting his next fight. “I am certain that I will fight again – but I have no idea who or when. I would love to fight some of the bigger names in the 205 pound light heavyweight division. It’s a little early yet as the fight with Bonnar was just a few weeks ago. Still, I will be starting back up my preparation so as to keep this terrific edge I’ve developed. I want to continue on.” Regardless what opponent the UFC picks for Mr. Coleman to fight, with his new lease on life and his new approach towards fighting, training, conditioning and nutrition, the selected opponent would be well advised to not take this veteran fighter too lightly. The consequences of underestimating Mark “The Hammer” Coleman are nothing less than devastating.