UFC 140 Fight Card: What a Loss Would Mean for Mark Hominick

After a lengthy recovery from his five-round war against UFC Featherweight Champion José Aldo, Mark "The Machine" Hominick is finally stepping back into the octagon at UFC 140. 

The good news is that Mark Hominick will be picking up right where he left off—at least geographically speaking. He'll be fighting back in his Canadian homeland, in the same city where he battled José Aldo for the title.

Hominick gave the champion a hard enough fight that The Machine is undoubtedly on the short list of potential No. 1 contenders.

The bad news is that tonight he's fighting an ever-improving Chan Sung Jung, also known as "The Korean Zombie." 

Now don't get me wrong. Mark Hominick definitely has all the skills he needs to win this fight. But the trouble with The Korean Zombie is that he's always a tough fight for any opponent.

With Hominick coming off of a disappointing loss in the biggest fight of his career, followed up by a long layoff, Zombieyama has a very good chance of beating Hominick.

The all-important X-factor: With five of his nine losses coming by submission, this is the biggest hole in Hominick's armor. And Zombieyama has amazing submissions. Jung also has good striking and absolutely phenomenal durability. This is a very winnable fight for Chan Sung Jung.

Zombieyama is not in the top 10 featherweights in the world. He's not even in the top 20. This would be a very bad loss for Mark at this point in his career.

With a loss to The Korean Zombie, Mark Hominick would get kicked all the way to the back of the line. Instead of being a couple solid wins away from another title fight, he'd need to string together four or five or more wins. That might take him a couple years to pull off.

The best option Mark Hominick has: Don't lose to Zombieyama.

Be sure to stay tuned to Bleacher Report for all things UFC 140. B/R is your home for complete coverage of the December 10 fight card, from pre-fight predictions to in-fight coverage, results and post-fight analysis.