Healthy Hominick returns to cage
TORONTO — It wasn’t until after UFC 129, when his wife snapped a photo of him with her phone in the hospital, that Canadian featherweight Mark Hominick realized what he looked like.
Thanks to 25 minutes in a cage with Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Jose Aldo, it appeared as if an alien was growing out of Hominick’s forehead. In reality, it was a muffin-sized hematoma.
“I didn’t even know. I thought it was cut until I got to the hospital,” Hominick said. “My wife took a picture of my face with her phone and I almost fell off the bed. … Definitely it was a pretty scary sight, but it looked worse than it was.”
Hominick, 29, said it took three or four hours with an ice pack to get his forehead back to its original shape, and he was left with two black eyes and swollen cheeks.
But the forehead injury remains a talking point.
“Everybody comes up and looks at me. I think they’re still looking for the bump,” Hominick said. “It’s the first question. But it makes the fight memorable.”
Hominick (20-9) lost the April 30 co-main event, but came on strong in the fifth round and made the Brazilian 145-pound champion look human for the first time in a long time.
Hominick returns to action tonight against Chan Sung Jung, the “Korean Zombie,” at UFC 140 at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre. He is one of seven Canadians on the card, headlined by light heavyweight champion Jon Jones defending the belt against former titleholder Lyoto Machida.
A gifted technical striker who has worked hard to feel comfortable on the ground, Hominick’s stand-up skills will be tested against Jung.
Jung (11-3) turned heads in a slugfest loss to Leonard Garcia in an April 2010 World Extreme Cagefighting bout and earned his revenge in March in the UFC when he stopped Garcia with a rare Twister submission.
“I love watching his fights,” Hominick said.
Despite being on the wrong end of the Aldo result — the judges scored the fight 48-45, 48-46, 49-46 for the champ — Hominick said he has no regrets.
“He won, I lost,” Hominick said. “It was a great fight. I was glad I got to show what kind of fighter I was, because basically I felt I showed the last 15 years of my life in that fight — the amount of dedication, the amount of heart I put toward the sport and put toward my training. I got to show the whole world. It was almost like a 15-year overnight sensation.”
Hominick will be fighting Jung without coach and friend Shawn Tompkins, who died of a heart attack in August. He was 37.
Team Tompkins was based in Las Vegas.
“It’s our responsibility to carry on Shawn’s legacy,” said Hominick.
The card airs live on pay per view at 6 p.m. and features both Nogueira twins.
Heavyweight Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira will get a rematch against Las Vegan Frank Mir, who knocked him out in 2008. Light heavyweight Antonio Rogerio Nogueira will fight Tito Ortiz.
The undercard will air live on Ion (Cable 51) at 4 p.m.