Mark Hall | The Fighter

The King Cobra is a spiritual snake, yet considered to be very dangerous, fearsome and highly aggresive if one enters into its range.

The King Cobra will not attack unless threatened or cornered.

One strike from The King Cobra has enough venom to kill ten men.

Mark Hall never had a lot of competition experience before entering his first UFC. He didn’t have competition experience like most of his opponents who were colligate, NCAA, pro boxers, or kick boxers with a history of competitions that built their competitive spirit. Although Mark had a lot of training, he had no competitive experience except for street fights and his years working as a bouncer and a bodyguard. By the time he entered his first UFC, he had learned how to use the effects of adrenaline and developed his breathing technique to a pro level. These two advantages aided him tremendously in competing at a pro level. Most of Mark’s hands on experience came from the street when at an early age kids would bully and make fun of him for his handicap. Mark had a severe speech impediment. In Mark’s own words “I couldn’t say one word without turning red, and often my tongue would come out of my mouth”. Read more about Mark’s difficult childhood in the first chapter of his new book titled - Mark Hall "The Cobra" The Fine Art of Fighting.

Mark’s father was his first martial arts instructor and his living room was his first dojo. Later at the age of fourteen, he joined a boxing gym and began training. His dream was to become a fighting champion. During his second year of training Mark set out to be a Golden Gloves Champion. On his way home from training one night, he ran a stop sign on his motorcycle and smashed into a new Cadillac at approximately 40 miles an hour, breaking his neck and ribs, crushing his dream of becoming a fighting champion. Read more about this in chapter four “A Lost Dream” of Mark’s new book.

Not long after healing Mark joined an American Karate School and began his rise up the martial arts ladder, eventually earning his black belt. When he left Texas and moved to California, he began training with the Korean Arts, earning an additional black belt in tae kwon do. Mark also involved himself in body building, 5 and 10K runs, triathalons, and marathons. Mark also auditioned for the television show "The American Gladiators". In 1987 he joined "Moo Yea Do" karate, a hybrid martial art teaching Kung-fu Akido and Tae Kwon Do, founded by the 10th degree world Grand Master "Tiger Yang". Within a decade he had earned his 4th degree black belt. Mark had already been working in rough bars and night clubs for years and over the years had already witnessed hundreds of assaults and was involved in dozens more. Mark had discovered that training in the dojo was useful in a street brawl, but no substitute for experience. In Mark's words…

“Your assailant in a street fight will not attack you like your training partner in the dojo, the fact is he didn’t attend your dojo so he doesn’t know how to attack like that. He learned by doing, and he sticks with what works. This makes the untrained street fighter more dangerous than many martial artists realize, however, it also gives him a significant amount of predictability that you can exploit once you understand his Modus Operandi. I believe that every real world assault is at least an attempt at some form of ambush, yet ironically, the actual attack is most often preceded with some form of interview (argument), the objective being to determine if you are safe to attack. I have discovered that once one learns and comes to understand the interview process and its various stages, you become much more difficult to ambush with the sucker punch, which is the most popular ambush technique in a street assault. To get comfortable with something you must experience it over and over again. Most people mistake that a real street fight isn’t so much about their failure in technique but a failure in the psychological preparation for combat. It’s not easy and requires a lot of training to make that instant mental transition from normal civilized behavior to 100% combat mode in the flick of a switch. It’s like stepping into that phone booth as the mild mannered Clark Kent and stepping out as Superman. It’s not something that everyone can do, it requires a lot of training and experience. When you are forced to defend yourself in an actual assault you will be in an adrenalized state. This biochemical reaction has profound effects on a person’s cognitive and motor control function. Most people in general think of adrenaline provides them with enhanced strength, power and speed, and this is true, however, a person not conditioned to the adrenal reaction may be overcome by it and may lose their ability to use higher brain functions or to coordinate their limbs, In short, they may panic or freeze up, this is why otherwise decent martial artists may find themselves flailing and unable to access any of their martial training tools because they have little or no experience coming into the octagon already. I understood very early on that the formal training in the dojo or experience on the street will be useless unless you are able to get your mind right. That’s why I was able to overcome my lack of competition experience and compete with bigger, tougher competitors, like Don Frye. Remember, it’s not your bicep that instructs you to jump up in a fist of fury and kick someone’s ass, it’s your mind. When you get your mind right you will become challenged instead of defeated before you ever step into the cage or face your assailant on the street”.

During the 1980's and 1990's Mark was working as a bouncer, bodyguard, operating a martial arts school, and training himself for the famous “Gracie Challenge” when the first UFC was broadcast live from Denver Colorado. Mark brought all his students together to watch it live on a big screen television, after the inaugural event Mark stood up and announced to everyone in the room that he would prepare and promote himself and participate in this new event very soon. In Mark’s words “This was tailor made for me and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect”. And one must not forget that back then this was different styles of Martial Arts from different disciplines competing against each other in a street fight. It wasn’t of the Ultimate Fighting art or the MMA art that most MMA fighters use today. True to his words, Mark was chosen from eight fighters around the world to participate in UFC #7 as a main draw contestant. And as they say, the rest is history.

All of Mark's UFC fights and most of his fights around the world are commentated blow by blow in full detail in his new book, including the truth about the Ken Shamrock ambush at the Soboba Casino in California, the Fredaricko Lapenda fight in Moscow Russia and the truth about Don Frye and the UU1996.

FIGHTER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Who ever posted Mark's fight record on Sherdog and other fight websites got it all wrong. Those four amateur fights they have listed aren't even his. The fact is that Mark has never had an MMA amateur carrer because there weren't any amateur MMA fight leagues at that time. Mark started his pro carrer with the only game in town, the UFC. In Mark's own words,"A fighters record is very important to him. If you are going to record it then get it right."


In 1996 Mark was named as one of the top ten fighters within the octagon walls on the UFC website.	In 1997 Mark was rated #5 in the world by the IVC in the Middleweight Division. (Click to Enlarge)