The former UFC heavyweight champion Mark "The Hammer" Coleman will be inducted in the UFC Hall of fame during the UFC 82:Pride of a Champion event. Coleman became the first heavyweight champion in the UFC at UFC 12 when he defeated Dan Severn via submission-choke. He won 6 of his 9 fights at the UFC before he joined the former Japanese organization–PrideFC.
At PrideFC, he won the Pride 2000 open-weight Grand Prix tournament where he defeated top names including Masaake Sataki, Akira Shoji, Igor Vovchanchyn and Kazuyuki Fujita.
Although he wishes to continue with his mixed martial arts career, the UFC feels that he should be remembered as one of the top competitors the UFC ever had.
