Chael Sonnen wants a year. That’s his whole ask, delivered to Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie this week. Hold off on deciding who Josh Hokit is, he said, because the 28-year-old heavyweight is only partway through something he’s building.
“He’s painting this masterpiece. Let him get it done and then pass judgement,” Sonnen said. “The greats take a little while. He’s getting warmed up.”
I’ll give Sonnen half of that. On the fighting, he’s right, and it isn’t close. On the microphone, I’m not buying what he’s selling.
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The fight case is airtight
Start with the record, because it’s absurd for a guy who still feels new. Hokit is 10-0 overall and 4-0 inside the UFC, and his last two nights in the Octagon did more for his standing than most heavyweights get out of a decade. His fight with Curtis Blaydes ended up in Fight of the Year conversation. Then at UFC Freedom 250 he put Derrick Lewis away in the first round. Getting Lewis out of there in Round 1 is the kind of result that drags a name up the rankings overnight, and Hokit rode it straight to a title shot.
The man waiting for him is Ciryl Gane, the newly promoted undisputed champion, 14-2 overall and 11-2 in the UFC. They meet at UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden, and Sonnen thinks the booking makes total sense.
“Josh Hokit is undefeated. Josh Hokit is ranked No. 4 in the world. Josh Hokit is the only guy that allows for some parity,” Sonnen told MMA Junkie. “He’s the guy we want to see fight, so he’s the right answer.”
Then came the best line of the interview. Sonnen pointed out that if Hokit’s mouth has earned him a beating, the UFC picked the right guy to hand it out. “If Hokit’s such a bad guy, this is exactly what he deserves,” he said.
That’s sharp. Fans who want Hokit humbled get a champion who is the first real test of whether Hokit’s wrestling and power can carry him to the very top of the division. Fans who love him get a crowning moment at the Garden. Everybody watches. As matchmaking logic, it’s flawless, and Sonnen knows it.
The masterpiece pitch has a hole in it
Now for the other half.
Sonnen’s framing is that critics are judging Hokit off fragments, stitching together what he called “broken up clips that were 45 seconds or less” into a verdict. That defense works for plenty of trash talkers. Heels say outrageous things in pieces, the internet grabs the worst piece, and context gets lost along the way.
The moment that put Hokit at the center of all this doesn’t fit that mold. He called former First Lady Michelle Obama a man on the UFC White House stage, during the Freedom 250 broadcast. MMA Junkie’s write-up described some of his comments as bigoted. That one wasn’t pulled from some three-hour podcast and trimmed down by a hostile account. It went out live, on the company’s own show, on the biggest night of his career to that point. A year of further storytelling doesn’t change what got said into that microphone.
What’s funny is that Sonnen is, in a way, defending his own blueprint. BJPenn.com noted that plenty of people compare Hokit to Sonnen for his pro wrestling style on the mic, and Sonnen’s own run as “The American Gangster” was built on personal digs at Anderson Silva and the Brazilian fanbase. That made him a villain to some and a comedian to others. Love it or not, those shots were aimed at the guy he was about to fight and the people cheering for him. They had a point inside the sport. Michelle Obama is nowhere on the heavyweight ladder. There’s no fight being sold there.
So when Sonnen says Hokit is “going somewhere with all of this,” I’d love to know where. Sonnen didn’t say, and I doubt anyone on the outside knows either.
Where this actually gets decided
Here’s my take. Sonnen is asking for patience on the wrong part of Hokit’s career. Nobody needs a year to evaluate “The Incredible Hok” as a fighter, because the evaluation is already scheduled. Undefeated wrestler against the champion in New York. That answers itself in one night.
The mic work will get judged the way it always does, which is clip by clip and line by line, because that’s how people hear it. If Hokit wants a better reputation than the one Freedom 250 gave him, the cleanest route runs through Gane’s chin. BJPenn.com called a Hokit win an upset, and if he pulls it off, the UFC’s front office will start seeing exactly the dollar signs Sonnen has been predicting.
The date is UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden in November (MMA Junkie has it on Nov. 14, while BJPenn.com lists Nov. 12). Gane gets the first brushstroke on Sonnen’s masterpiece.
