Ciryl Gane has heard the Josh Hokit act, and he isn’t worried about it. The heavyweight champion told RMC Sport Combat that nothing Hokit says will rattle him before UFC 334, as long as the unbeaten challenger leaves Gane’s mother out of it.
“Ah, he does what he wants to do; I don’t control it,” Gane said. “But no, you can insult me. But my mom, you know you don’t know my mom.”
He went further. Gane said he figures Hokit will try to call him a cheater, and he shrugged at that too. “There’s not much you can say to attack me; I’m confident in who I am when I look in the mirror,” he said, later adding, “When I look at myself in the mirror, I know I’m not a cheater. I have no problem with that.”
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The two meet at Madison Square Garden in a week. Gane’s reign is about two months old, per Essentially Sports, and Hokit arrives undefeated with a mouth that usually shows up before his hands do.
Gane picked that exact line for a reason. Hokit has a track record of going after family. During fight week for the White House card, where Hokit was booked against Derrick Lewis and Gane faced Alex Pereira in the co-main, Hokit turned his attention to Pereira. He called the Brazilian a “little short midget,” said he would eat the heavyweight newcomer alive, then made explicit remarks about Pereira’s mother.
Hokit stopped Lewis in the second round that night, then caught heavy criticism for what he said afterward about former First Lady Michelle Obama. Before that fight he reportedly put out a diss track aimed at Lewis, promising to beat the veteran senseless. He has also taken shots at heavyweight prospect Gable Stevenson and Jon Jones, who mentors Stevenson. Earlier this year, in April, he was in the cage with Curtis Blaydes at UFC 327 in Miami.
Gane has mostly stuck to friendly ribbing with his opponents, so a full-volume Hokit fight week is new territory for him. Plenty of people online already see where this is going. TSN’s Aaron Bronsteter reposted the clip on X with a one-line joke about what Hokit’s brain will be doing at the press conference, and the r/MMA thread picked up the same headline within hours.
The mom line has history in combat sports. Michael Chiesa went across a stage at Kevin Lee in 2017 after Lee reportedly brought up Chiesa’s mother, and security had to pull them apart. In boxing, Canelo Alvarez took Caleb Plant’s profanity as a direct shot at his mother, and Plant walked away from that scuffle with a cut.
My take: Gane just handed Hokit a map with a red X on it, and nothing on Hokit’s résumé says he’ll walk around it. That’s a gift for Hokit if he wants Gane emotional and swinging. It’s a risk too, because the calmest version of Gane is the one who has spent his career picking big men apart from range. If Hokit goes there at the press conference, keep an eye on the security guys behind the table.
