Eddie Yagin pulled off an upset win over Mark Hominick tonight at UFC 145 after a competitive and bloody stand-up battle fought over three rounds.
The opening round between these two fighters showed contrasting striking styles with Hominick looking light on his feet and throwing technical strikes, while Yagin was planting his feet and unleashing big, winging punches and chopping low leg kicks.
Hominick opened a small cut on Yagin’s cheek as he got his jab working, but it was Yagin who would have the opening stanza’s biggest moment as he crashed a huge uppercut into Hominick’s chin that dropped him mid-way through the round.
Yagin also landed a hook on the way down and dropped some big ground and pound bombs on the mat which left Hominick with a cut right eye which was beginning to swell, but he wasn’t able to finish Hominick who got back to his feet and appeared to have recovered as he traded strikes in the closing seconds and landed a couple of nice body shots.
The two men continued to trade blows in a similiar fashion in the second round and again it was Yagin’s less technical but certainly powerful ‘swinging for the fences’ style that was paying dividends as he dropped Hominick again with a right hand down the pipe.
Again Yagin looked for the big finish with ground and pound strikes and again Hominick managed to survive and emerge back to his feet.
Hominick’s face was a mess by this stage as the damage began to take it’s toll, but in the remaining minutes of the round he was the one who picked up the pace and was peppering Yagin’s face with some nice strikes which left his opponent with a bloodied nose, but never really had him badly hurt.
Despite being knocked down twice in the fight Hominick seemed the fresher fighter going into the third round and he was landing with frequency with straight punches, while Yagin was throwing less offense of his own and wasn’t finding his target as much as in the early rounds.
As the final minute approached Hominick’s offense finally began to break down Yagin who appeared hurt as another combination of strikes found their mark, but rather than wilting he gutted it out and fired back and managed to make it to the end of the round.
So, a decent rally at the end from Hominick, but the knockdowns earlier in the fight cost him and resulted in Eddie Yagin being awarded a split decision victory by the judges (29-28 x2, 28-29).
Not long ago Hominick was fighting for the featherweight title, but remarkably he’s now 0-3 in the UFC.
