Dominick Cruz built a Hall of Fame career on making people miss, so when he says a heavyweight’s footwork is going to wreck somebody’s night, I pay attention. On BetOnline’s The Fight Guys podcast, Cruz called Ciryl Gane a “kryptonite style” for Josh Hokit ahead of Saturday’s UFC 334 main event in New York City. Gane was promoted to undisputed champion after Tom Aspinall vacated the heavyweight belt earlier this year. Hokit, the former Dana White’s Contender Series standout, gets the biggest test of a fast climb.
I think Cruz is right. His reasoning is also sharper than the usual take that the bigger man simply beats the smaller one, so let’s walk through it piece by piece.
Speed is a ratio
Cruz opened with this: “Gane matches Hokit’s speed with his hands and his kicks. Whereas, when you watched Hokit against Derrick Lewis, he was three times faster than him.”
That second sentence is the key. Speed in a fight only means something relative to the guy across from you. Against Lewis, by Cruz’s read, Hokit had a massive edge in quickness, and an edge that big covers a lot of technical sins. You can start an entry a beat late and still get there first.
Take that edge away and everything gets harder. A takedown works because the defender can’t react in time to the level change. If the defender’s reaction time roughly matches the attacker’s entry speed, the shot turns into a telegram. The defender sees the hips drop, gets his own hips back, and now the wrestler is on his knees in front of a man who throws kicks.
The lateral problem
Cruz then went straight to the grappling question: “Changing levels could help Hokit but I think Gane is also a guy who can fight moving backwards, sideways, laterally, and he can use the entire Octagon.”
This is the part casual viewers miss. A double leg wants a target that is either planted or retreating in a straight line. Straight back is easy to chase. You run your man into the fence and finish there. Lateral movement takes away the angle. You shoot at a hip that has already slid off to the side, and you end up reaching with your arms instead of driving with your legs, which is how wrestlers get stuffed and stood up all night.
Add the size. BJPenn noted Gane holds a significant size advantage over Hokit, the kind Hokit hasn’t seen in his UFC career. Length plus lateral movement means Hokit has to cover more ground to get into range, and every extra step is another chance for Gane to put a kick on him before he arrives.
The Aspinall comparison
My favorite line from Cruz was the most careful one: “When we saw [Gane] versus Tom Aspinall, he could stop the takedown. I think Hokit is a better wrestler than Aspinall,” Cruz said, before adding that Aspinall also brings full heavyweight size to the cage.
He’s separating skill from mass, which is exactly the right distinction. Stopping a heavier man’s takedown proves your base and your sprawl. Stopping a more skilled wrestler’s takedown is a different test, because a real wrestler doesn’t live on the first shot. He chains. Single leg into a dump, dump into a body lock, body lock into a trip against the fence. If Hokit wins this fight, I’d bet it comes from the second and third attempts in a sequence, after Gane has already defended the first one and his feet are no longer under him.
That’s the honest case for Hokit, and it’s why some analysts think his wrestling and speed will give Gane trouble. Cruz acknowledged the stakes himself: “Honestly, this is the fight where if Josh Hokit can win, he’s here to stay for a long time.”
What Hokit’s trash talk tells you
Hokit has already taken shots at Gane’s approach, calling it “coward-based” and saying “He plays it safe,” per BJPenn. I read that as a tell. Hokit knows the fight he wants is one Gane has no obligation to give him. A champion who can win from the outside doesn’t owe a challenger a phone booth.
That puts the burden on Hokit’s corner between rounds. If the first five minutes are stuffed shots and kicks to the body, I want to see a real adjustment in Round 2, like feinting the shot to freeze Gane’s feet and then hunting the clinch against the fence instead of shooting from open space. Fighters who make that switch win title fights. Fighters who keep shooting from distance and hope get frustrated, and frustrated wrestlers start loading up on overhands.
And if this goes the distance with Gane circling and Hokit chasing, I’d like the judges to score clean, effective striking for what it is instead of rewarding forward motion that lands nothing. That’s a low bar. They trip over it every few months.
Cruz’s summary was blunt: “But I think Hokit is going to have his hands full,” followed by “It’s a bad style matchup.” I agree. My pick is Gane, outside and on his feet, retaining the belt. The fight goes Saturday, Nov. 14, at Madison Square Garden, with Kayla Harrison defending her women’s bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes in the co-main event.
