As a retired United States Marine, my father was never one for hyperbole. A nice play on the ball field, a sweet pick and roll, or a well-placed counterpunch got a grunt and the smallest hint of a smile, nothing more.
Then Mark Coleman came around. And as “The Hammer” won three fights in one night at UFC 10 in July of 1996, finishing Moti Horenstein, Gary Goodridge and Don Frye in succession, my father deadpanned, “They’ll never beat that guy.”
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It wasn’t a wish or an opinion.