From 2000 through 2006, Coleman continued his career with Japanese promotion, PRIDE Fighting Championships while also making appearances with the professional wrestling promotion HUSTLE. He won the PRIDE 2000 Open Weight Grand Prix tournament defeating Masaaki Satake, Akira Shoji, Kazuyuki Fujita, and Igor Vovchanchyn.
After a quick TKO victory over Allan Goes at PRIDE 13, Coleman faced possibly his toughest challenge ever in Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at PRIDE 16. "Minotauro" was able to catch Coleman in a triangle/armbar at 6:10 of the first round, breaking Coleman's six fight winning streak.
Coleman would take nearly two years off following the fight with Nogueira, Spending time with his wife and children, and focusing on developing his martial arts training facility and stable of fighters at Team Hammer House. Training such fighters as Kevin Randleman, Wes Sims, and Phil Baroni, Team Hammer House quickly gained a reputation of turning out world class fighters.
Coleman returned to MMA competition at PRIDE 26 to face Don Frye in a rematch of their meeting at UFC 10, this proved to be a much tougher battle. Coming back from a career threatening neck injury, Coleman ultimately won a unanimous decision victory after 20 minutes. Following the fight, Coleman apologised to the fans for the lack of action during the fight which he had spent the majority of taking down and maintaining positional dominace of Frye with his superior wrestling ability.
Between training fighters and spending time with his family, Coleman was now fighting roughly once a year. He returned to competition to take place in the PRIDE 2004 Heavyweight Grand Prix, as the returning Grand Prix champion in the Open Weight Division. His first round match at PRIDE Total Elimination 2004 was against PRIDE heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko. In what turned out to be a short bout, Coleman was submitted by armbar at 2:11 of the first round, eliminating him from the tournament.
Coleman returned to the Pride ring in February 2005, this time facing Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović at PRIDE 29: Fists of Fire. Suffering the second knockout of his career, Coleman fell to strikes by "Cro Cop" in the first round. In November of 2005, Coleman appeared in Bushido Europe-Rotterdam Rumble, Europe's first Bushido event, and choked out Milco Voorn at 0:56 of the first round.
Coleman returned to action at PRIDE 31 with a victory over Chute Boxe team member Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. With Team Hammer House member Phil Baroni in his corner, Coleman began the match by taking Shogun to the ground. At 0:49 of the first round, Rua got up and as he took the first step Coleman grabbed his feet. Rua fell awkwardly and broke his arm. Coleman continued to fight, peppering Rua with strikes before the referee stopped the fight but not before Coleman threw the referee aside and began to shout at Murilo Rua, Mauricio's brother, who entered the ring following the injury. Chute Boxe team members outside the ring, including then PRIDE middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva, jumped into the ring and began struggling with cornerman Phil Baroni. In the ensuing melee, Baroni landed several shots on Silva before taking Silva to the ground, where Coleman then stomped on Silva's throat. After the ring was cleared and order was restored, both camps vowed to settle the score at a future event. [3] Coleman later apologised to Chute Boxe backstage, but an outraged Chute Boxe refused to accept.[4] The Chute Boxe team was assigned a yellow card for instigating this infraction.
On October 21 2006, Coleman again faced PRIDE heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko at PRIDE's first American show, PRIDE 32: The Real Deal,[5] and lost via submission (armbar) at 1:17 of round two.
Coleman appeared with teammate, Kevin Randleman, on the US pay-per-view broadcast of the final PRIDE event, PRIDE 34: Kamikaze, stating that he intended to keep fighting.