As it stands, former UFC heavyweight champion Mark Coleman doesn’t really mind being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame for being one half of a fight he lost in highlight-reel fashion. But he knows things could have been very different.

“I did, for a while, fall into it when I found out,” Coleman told MMAjunkie. “It went back and forth. But mostly, I thought it was so cool – very cool – and at the end of the day, I was proud to have been in that cage that night.

“There were other emotions that creeped in and said, ‘Well what the hell? What a way to get indicted into a Hall of Fame,’ you know? But the thing that saved me is that if Pete Williams would have ended my career with that kick, which happens to a lot of people, something like that – if he would have ended my career, I would still be completely demonized by that night.”

Williams and Coleman will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame’s fight wing this year in honor of their historic UFC 17 clash from May 1998 in Mobile, Ala.

Williams, just 23 years old at the time and making his UFC debut, stepped in on short notice to replace an injured Randy Couture. Coleman said he never considered turning down the fight, even as the UFC cycled between a handful of names before settling on Williams.

Coleman admits he didn’t know much about Williams, but as the fight neared and he learned of the Lions Den fighter’s submission skills, “The Hammer” said he tried to squeeze in some last-second preparation – likely to his detriment.

“I warmed up for an hour trying to learn how to defend armbars,” Coleman recalled. “I went through my first teaching session the night of the fight. I’m going over the armbar for over an hour, and my friends or coaches or whatever you want to call them are all just watching just kind of scratching their head because I went hard for an hour. Then I walked back into my locker room and sat down and things just weren’t right. I couldn’t stop sweating, hypoglycemic because my thyroid was messed up, and I didn’t even know it.”

Coleman said he remembers longtime referee “Big” John McCarthy coming to the locker room for final instructions and being taken aback by Coleman’s condition.

“I remember ‘Big’ John opens the door, looking in, to give me my final instructions,” Coleman said. “I know he remembers this moment because he looked at me and said, ‘Damn, are you all right?’

“I’m sitting on the toilet, dude, just bent over, sweating, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’ But I actually, I was honestly saying, ‘I wish I could just run out the side door.’ I wanted to get out of there, but that ain’t my style.”

Coleman had success early, working the fight to the floor and keeping his arm safe. However, McCarthy brought the fight back to the feet just past the five-minute mark, and Coleman’s fatigue was already evident. Williams began to chop the legs as they battled in the standup department, and Coleman struggled to score another takedown, which wouldn’t come until there was just 90 seconds left in the 12-minute opening period.

With neither man earning a finish, the fight went into a three-minute overtime period, and Williams looked energized to start. An exhausted Coleman struggled to keep up, and when Williams threw his first high kick of the contest, it landed flush and sent his opponent crashing to the floor in one of the most memorable finishes in UFC history.

“I walked in there, did my best, damn near beat the guy,” Coleman said. “Credit to Pete Williams because all I had to do was take him down in overtime and I had the win. But credit to him.

“I had nothing left, and I thought he was kicking me in the leg, but he was kicking me in the (expletive) teeth. And I bit it. It was horrible. It was just sad.”

Coleman said he’s only seen the whole fight “once or twice,” though he’s “seen the ending 1,000 times.”

“Now that they’re putting in the whole thing, I’m going to have go back and watch it a few times,” Coleman said. “I’m probably going to get disgusted because I could have won that damn thing. But Pete Williams sucked it up.

“Young kid, and I made the wrestler’s rookie mistake and thought he was kicking me in the leg and reached down to grab his leg because I needed to take him down, and nope. He was coming straight up to the teeth and nose area, and he got me. He got me.”

Coleman would fight again eight months later, losing a split-decision to Pedro Rizzo in a bout Coleman still believes he won. He then moved to Japan, losing once under the PRIDE banner before reeling off six straight victories en route to claiming the promotion’s openweight PRIDE Grand Prix 2000.

Coleman was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2008, though he returned to the octagon in 2009 and fought three more times before finally calling it quits in 2010. Despite being nearly 11 years Coleman’s junior, Williams actually walked away from the sport in 2002, so a rematch never took place.

As their legendary fight now again takes center stage, Coleman admits it could have been devastating to his career. But he’s thankful additional successes helped him to put that disappointing night behind.

“If that’s the way my career ended, I probably would be sitting here sick to my stomach,” Coleman said. “But I was able to come back, and you forget about the past. Well, you don’t forget about the past, but no, I won the PRIDE Grand Prix, and it basically relieved me of the pain.”

The UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place July 10 at Las Vegas Convention Center.