(photo courtesy of Tracy Lee @ www.combatlifestyle.com)
Canadian featherweight Mark Hominick (20-8) demonstrated Saturday night why UFC President Dana White felt confident enough to announce him as the next #1 contender to meet Jose Aldo. He first had to defeat George Roop as part of last night’s Spike TV broadcasted main card at UFC: Fight for the Troops 2 before earning top contender status.
Hominick made short work of his opponent scoring with several strikes, wobbling his opponent in the opening minute of the fight. He’d eventually put Roop down with a good couple of punches and follow it up with a few strikes while over towering over his opponent. The referee would step in, despite Roop’s protests to end the fight at 1: 28 of the first round.
Roop quickly got up and stumbled over to Hominick to congratulate him on the victory, and it was easy to see that the referee had made the right call as Roop almost fell into his opponents arms.
Now Hominick will get the chance to fight for the UFC featherweight title in his home province of Ontario on April 30th at UFC 129 against Aldo, in what is sure to be a record breaking UFC event.
During the post fight press conference Hominick expressed his confidence going into his next fight, noting that Aldo has been making wrestlers “look like poor strikers” and has yet to face an opponent with his striking skills up to this point.
“This is huge, but take it from me I’ve been fighting professionally for ten years,” talking of his pro career dating back to June 2002. “I’ve went through the bottom and now I’m finally getting a chance to go against the top, the best of the best. They are always the guys that I’ve always wanted to face.”
“One thing against Jose Aldo, he’s a fantastic…I think he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter, fantastic striker but he’s never faced anyone with my striking abilities. So we’ll see how he does against that,” Hominick stated to the gathered press. “He’s been making wrestlers look like poor strikers. A lot of times that’s not to hard but he’s not going to do that to me and I”m going in with that kind of confidence.”
A confident Hominick stated “I know he’s the best in the world but he’s never faced anyone like me.”