Stipe Miocic has never struck me as a guy who goes looking for a microphone so he can start a fire. So when the former two-time heavyweight champion steps up to defend Ciryl Gane’s claim to UFC gold, I pay attention. Per Bloody Elbow, Miocic insisted Gane “deserves” to be champion, and he waved off the noise that has followed the Frenchman since the eye pokes in his fight with Tom Aspinall.
He’s right. And the timing makes his point for him, because Gane is about to answer the question with his fists against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 this weekend.
The Asterisk Crowd Has a Point, Up to a Point
I get why people are mad. Eye pokes are the most frustrating foul in the sport. They’re hard for referees to see in real time, they can wreck a fight in one motion, and the guy on the receiving end gets zero do-overs for the lost camp and the lost moment. Fans who saw the Aspinall fight and walked away grumbling about how it played out aren’t crazy.
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The asterisk argument falls apart once the next fight gets booked, though. A title gets its legitimacy from what the champion does with it afterward, and Gane isn’t sitting on the belt or angling for some cushy matchup. He’s walking straight into a fight with a guy who has spent fight week openly mocking him about fouls. That’s the opposite of ducking. A champ who thought his title was shaky would be looking for the safest name on the roster, and Hokit is nobody’s idea of safe.
Miocic knows what it costs to win and keep heavyweight gold. If he’s the one telling you Gane belongs there, the Aspinall controversy should come with an expiration date, and that date is this weekend.
Josh Hokit Already Turned the Pokes Into a Bit
This is where I stop pretending to be a serious columnist and admit I’ve watched the Hokit clip four times. Speaking with Ariel Helwani, Hokit laid out his personal escalation policy if Gane gets loose with his fingers, and it went off the rails gloriously:
“If he pokes my eye, I’m gonna hit him in the back of the head. If he hits me in the back of the head, I’m hitting him low. If he hits me low, I’m stabbing him now. If he stabs me, I’m shooting him. If he shoots me, I’m finding his family and killing them. If he finds my family and kills them, I’m going to France and conquering them.”
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That’s a Looney Tunes revenge plot delivered with a straight face, and I love every second of it. It’s also the clearest sign of how loudly the Aspinall fight still echoes. Hokit built his whole fight-week routine around the poke stuff because he knows it gets under Gane’s skin and because he knows fans are still chewing on it.
Then came the first face-off in Times Square, which delivered the kind of chaos I live for. Hokit, nose to nose with the champ, opened with this: “I thought you’d be taller. I’d still dunk on your b*tch ass. Zebi.” Gane, sounding genuinely puzzled, shot back, “Zebi? What does it mean.” And Hokit, fully committed: “You know exactly what that means.”
Manufactured beef usually dies the second two guys stand face to face and get awkward. This one went the other way. Hokit kept swinging, and Gane stood there and took it without blinking. Good. A champion who can absorb that in the middle of Times Square without melting down is acting like a champion.
Sean Strickland Smells an Upset
Not everyone is buying Gane as the favorite here. Sean Strickland picked Hokit, and he went right at the most famous hole in Gane’s resume: “When [Gane] fought Jon Jones, his wrestling was so bad. Josh Hokit is a smart guy, he’s gonna take him down. I’m thinking either a TKO or submission in the 2nd or 3rd round.”
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Strickland has a lot of takes, and some of them age like milk, but this one has teeth. The Jones fight is the tape every grappler studies before facing Gane, and Hokit’s camp will have watched it until their eyes bled. If Hokit can drag this to the mat and make Gane carry weight, the eye-poke debate becomes trivia, because Gane won’t be champion anymore.
That’s why Miocic’s defense matters, and why it’ll either look great or look silly by Sunday morning. Gane’s legitimacy question gets a clean answer in about 25 minutes or less. Win clearly, keep the hands open and the fingers closed, and the Aspinall chatter fades into a footnote. Get taken down and finished the way Strickland predicts, and the people who called the belt a fluke will be insufferable for months.
My Take
Gane deserves the belt until somebody takes it, and the only somebody on the schedule is Josh Hokit. I’d rather watch a champion with something to prove than a champion protecting a ranking, and Gane has every reason to fight angry Saturday. The eye-poke crowd gets its answer at UFC 334, and if Gane’s fingers wander even once, I expect Hokit to at least attempt the France part of his plan.
