Dana White doesn’t like Josh Hokit’s act. He also doesn’t want to hear that Hokit hasn’t earned his shot at Ciryl Gane’s undisputed heavyweight title at UFC 334.
“You know how I feel about shtick, I don’t like them, I don’t like his shtick, but for anyone to say he doesn’t deserve this fight is crazy,” White said, according to BBC Sport reporting carried by Yahoo Sports. “He earned this fight, that he absolutely did.”
The fight goes Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Hokit, 29, is ranked fifth at heavyweight and is 10-0. He made his UFC debut a year ago and has won four times inside the promotion since. That is a fast elevator to the top floor, and some critics have argued names like Alexander Volkov should be ahead of him in line, with the suggestion that Hokit’s mouth is what moved him up.
About that mouth. Hokit runs a persona-heavy interview routine in the Colby Covington mold, and it has cost him. His post-fight interview at UFC 324 in January drew accusations of racially aggravated and misogynistic comments. In June he aimed misogynistic remarks at former First Lady Michelle Obama, and White called those words “gross”, “moronic”, and “inappropriate”. At this week’s UFC 334 press conference Hokit kept going with crude jokes about other fighters, and White still came down on the side of the matchup.
Hokit also brought props. He showed up in goggles and an eye patch, a shot at Gane’s 2025 fight with Tom Aspinall, which ended in a no-contest after Gane’s eye pokes left Aspinall unable to continue. Aspinall later accused Gane of cheating. Gane maintains it was an accident, and he became undisputed champ in September when Aspinall vacated the title. Saturday is his first defense.
The 36-year-old Frenchman spent most of the week laughing it off.
“Honestly he deserves it, he’s a great athlete, he’s done very well, and he has a big mouth also that is good for the business,” Gane said. He went further with BBC Sport, calling Hokit a good wrestler with a good fight IQ, and said the 10-0 record and the run Hokit is on also put him in this spot.
Hokit, for his part, went with arithmetic. “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t, I earned my spot and this position, and I’m grateful for it,” he said.
The co-main has its own heat. Kayla Harrison defends the women’s bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes, who is coming out of retirement, and White had to steer Harrison away during a stare-down after the two former American Top Team teammates went back and forth for nearly two minutes.
My take: White is right, and it isn’t close. Ten fights, no losses, four UFC wins in 12 months, and the champ himself signing off on the matchup. The Volkov crowd has a point about seniority, but heavyweight has never cared much about waiting your turn. The jokes are bad. The resume isn’t. Saturday night at the Garden, Hokit gets to find out whether a wrestler who talks this much can stay out of the way of a 36-year-old who has seen everything at the top of the division, eye patch included.
