Thamesford, Ont.’s Mark (The Machine) Hominick returns to blog for sportsnet.ca ahead of his fight against Eddie Yagin on April 21 at UFC 145 in Atlanta.
It has been almost four months since my loss to Chan Sung Jung and I still look at it as a big learning experience.
I really didn’t want to dwell on it too much, but what I took from it is that any time you fight out of character you sometimes have to pay the price, and that’s what happened. I came out there so aggressive, wanting to knock him out so badly and any time you look for the knockout, it very rarely happens. It’s weird that after 10 years in a career that you have to learn a beginner-type lesson like that but that’s what I did.
I’ve gone out there before really focused on making a statement and the knockout came early, like when I fought Ben Greer in TKO Championship Fighting, I got the knockout just over a minute in and then again against George Roop in my return to the UFC. I knew I wanted to make a big statement. I went out there and knocked him out. So it’s happened before when I went out there simply looking to make a statement, but in the fight against the Korean Zombie I was actually saying, “I’m going to knock you out.” That’s just so out of character for me and the result was a lost in really quick fashion. I can never get that back, but the way I erase that loss is I go out there and win in my next one.
Of course, it was also a very emotional time, my first fight since the loss of my longtime coach and friend Shawn Tompkins. It was tough for all of us, for myself and my teammates Sam Stout and Chris Horodecki. All of our first fights without Shawn were definitely difficult. But we stood up there, we went at it hard, we trained hard, we were focused and we went out there. And we’ve all gone through that now, and now we can move forward.
That doesn’t mean moving on. My career is always going to be an ongoing dedication to Shawn. Nothing’s ever going to change there, he’s the reason why I’m here and able to do what I’m doing for a living and follow my passion and live my dream. It’s all because of him. So for the rest of my career I’ll continue to build on his legacy. But I’m not going out there just to prove a point now. The way I carry on his name is I continue to go out there and I continue to perform.
I was a little disappointed that my upcoming fight was switched to Atlanta because it was originally scheduled for Montreal in March. I was really looking forward to coming back to Montreal. I haven’t fought there in almost five years and that’s where I started my career.
But to be on this UFC 145 card, I would fight in Antarctica. This is a huge card. Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans is one of the biggest main events of the whole year and it’s an honour to be a part of the card and be on the main card especially.
I’m definitely not looking past my opponent Eddie Yagin, but after Atlanta I would definitely love to be a part of one or more of the cards later this year in Calgary, Toronto or Montreal. It was such an amazing announcement the UFC made that they’re committed to returning to Canada three times a year.
It says that the UFC truly recognizes the fan base that’s here, the passion of the fans and the loyalty the fans have shown to the UFC and they’re definitely rewarding us by having those shows. As a fighter, that’s a huge opportunity as well. I fought in Edmonton before at WEC 49 but never Calgary and it would be amazing. Montreal would be amazing to go back to my roots and obviously I’ve got a storied history with Toronto.
It was also an honour to be included in the ceremony they put on to announce the three events. They asked Georges St-Pierre and I to do the announcements for Montreal and Toronto remotely and when I heard that I just thought for me to be considered one of the top guys in Canada, I have to take that as a sense of pride that the UFC would ask me to be a part of it.
Having said that, it was a little embarrassing. (If you watched my live announcement, you’ll know what I mean. Technical difficulties!) It was actually really embarrassing after I watched it, but if people knew what was going on behind the scenes, I think they’d give me a little benefit of the doubt there.
It was awful. When I was speaking, there was like a 20-second delay, so I could see myself up there and then when I started speaking, I could hear what Dana (White) had said about 15 seconds previous and then once that came in, I started hearing what I said five seconds after that. So I was hearing three voices after I was speaking. It was pretty crazy, but the guys on the camera were like, “Man, I can’t believe you even pulled that off.” So I guess for the people who were behind the scenes, they understood, but yeah it was pretty embarrassing. I was happy Dana laughed it off. I think people understood it was beyond our control.
It was also awesome to see the great reception in Calgary, and then Dana says, “We’re coming back to Calgary.” That’s Dana. He shoots from the hip. Again at first they said they weren’t sure about the MMA Expo and then Dana said, “Ah, we’re coming here.” That shows his personality and the way they run things. They take chances and the UFC really prides itself on that.
I’ll talk more about my training in my next blog, but this Friday I’ll be in Windsor to corner my Adrenaline Training Center teammate Chris Horodecki, who fights Friday night for Bellator. I’ll be down the day of, since I’ve got some training partners in Windsor that I spar with, so I’m going to spar with them and corner for Chris. I’m going down Friday morning, it’s only about an hour and a half drive, so it’s great. I’ll definitely be there for Chris but I’ve got my fight as well in a couple weeks to prepare for so it will be good to get my sparring and training down.
Mark Hominick takes on Eddie Yagin on Saturday, April 21 at UFC 145, live on pay-per-view. Watch live prelims on Sportsnet.