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Former UFC heavyweight champion Mark Coleman is set to make his Celebrity Boxing debut.
Coleman was last seen in action more than a decade ago back at UFC 109 in February 2010. Despite retiring after that, he has stuck around the MMA world and is seen cornering UFC veteran Matt Brown.
Mark Coleman recently teased the idea of competing in slap-fighting and challenged former UFC fighter Tim Sylvia to the same. However, the idea was quickly turned down by the latter which has led to Coleman signing a deal with Celebrity Boxing to make his debut on October 14 later this year.
Fans don't seem to be so enthusiastic about Coleman's return to the world of combat sports. Many fans have even expressed disregard for the same, take a look at some of their reactions below:
"Wow. He must be almost homeless"
"If he shadow box I’ll bet on the shadow"
"Somebody get Mark to box me. I will take a dive no more brain damage please"
"When the nursing home assistants tried to feed grandpa his vegetables one too many times"
"yeah, very sad to see it. too bad these guys didn't make more money in their careers/tournaments. dude almost blows his knee out in the clip."
"I genuinely don’t think the commission will say no to any fight. This is terrible"
"He can’t even move sideways without slipping.. their is no way they can sanction this"
"Biggest reason for better fighter pay"
"man almost tripped and died lol"
"He definitely shouldn’t be fighting anyone for anything I thought he was just in the gym when I saw this sucks anyone would let him at this stage"
Mark Coleman was the first UFC heavyweight champion
The UFC heavyweight championship was first introduced in 1997. Mark Coleman and Dan Severn took on each other at UFC 12: Judgement Day on February 7.
Interestingly, Dan Severn wasn't initially supposed to take on Mark Coleman. Don Fyre was booked to fight Severn, however, the bout fell through after Fyre was unable to compete because of injuries.
Coleman went on to beat Severn in the first round via submission and became UFC's first-ever heavyweight champion. He held the title for 170 days before being defeated by Maurice Smith at UFC 14. 'The Hammer' then left the UFC for PRIDE and became the promotion's open-weight champion.
After a brief stint with PRIDE, Mark Coleman returned to the UFC in 2009 and retired in 2010 following a loss to Randy Couture.
