Josh Hokit sat down with Daniel Cormier ahead of his UFC 334 heavyweight title fight against Ciryl Gane, and the interview turned into a debate over whether his shock-comic act is helping his career or hurting it. Hokit’s answer was to point at the man holding the microphone. Pulling up Cormier’s history with Jon Jones, he argued that loud, extreme attention is what keeps a fighter from getting underpaid.
“You fought Jon Jones for $50K. I’m not going through that. I don’t want anyone to lowball me,” Hokit said, according to clips posted on X by Championship Rounds from Cormier’s channel. He followed it with a line about being willing to “crack a few eggs” to get where he wants to go.
Before he got to the business argument, he went after the former double champion’s head. Literally. “He’s just mad that he knocks himself out everytime he takes off a turtle neck. With his big ass head,” Hokit said, then added a crack about Cormier’s “dolphin forehead” and echolocation.
View post on X
The Incredible Hok’ at media day
The Cormier exchange came on the same Wednesday as UFC 334 media day, where Bloody Elbow reported that the 28-year-old slipped into his Incredible Hok’ persona and fired off a set of jokes at Alex Pereira, Kayla Harrison, Joaquin Buckley, Stephen Thompson, Gane and Cormier again. The Cormier line from that set: the last time he went three rounds was at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Several of the other bits leaned on slurs and gay jokes, which is the territory that has gotten him into trouble before.
That trouble has a name at the top of the company. Dana White publicly condemned Hokit’s comments about Michelle Obama after his win at UFC Freedom 250, once the remarks spilled into mainstream coverage. Cormier himself has been split on Hokit, per Bloody Elbow. He has criticized some of the comments while also acknowledging that the microphone work has turned Hokit into one of the biggest names on the roster.
Hokit and Gane faced off for the first time earlier this week in Times Square. Their fight headlines UFC 334 on Saturday, Nov. 14, with Harrison and Amanda Nunes in the co-main event, which makes the Harrison joke an odd swing at someone who isn’t even on his side of the bracket. Thompson, according to Hokit’s set, has said he’s retiring after this fight.
View post on X
What comes after Saturday could be enormous. Pereira fights Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335, and if both men win, Bloody Elbow points to Hokit vs. Pereira as one of the biggest fights the promotion could make.
Quick take
The forehead material is funny, and Cormier, who has spent years laughing at himself on broadcasts, can take it. The money argument deserves to be taken seriously too, because fighters have watched peers headline for small checks and walk away with nothing to show for it. Hokit’s logic does have a hole, though. The leverage he’s describing comes from attention, and attention that makes the boss condemn you on the record is a strange kind of leverage. The cleanest path to never being lowballed runs through Gane on Saturday night. Beat him, and the belt does the negotiating. Lose, and he’s a 28-year-old with a viral clip and a promoter who already doesn’t like him.
