Tuesday, July 27, 2010

From the Department of Little Coincidences

Eric Uresk is flying out to California to help BJ Penn train for his rematch against Frankie Edgar at UFC 118.  The interesting thing about that is that Edgar handed Uresk his first MMA loss, which was at an Underground Combat League event back in July, 2005 (Edgar's first fight, and Uresk's second).  Since then, Edgar went on to win the UFC belt (duh), while Uresk - himself a solid Greco-Roman wrestler from Long Island - fought a number of times in New Jersey and out west.  Uresk even trained at Xtreme Couture for a bit, and was one of Dana White's favorites at the TUF tryouts in New York City (along with Eddie Alvarez, Uresk was for some mysterious reason passed over).  "[Penn's camp] contacted me out of nowhere," says Uresk, who sports some of the gnarliest cauliflower ears on the planet - a sure sign that the dude was invited to train with Penn because he's similar to Edgar in both size and wrestling-heavy style.