Jon Jones sat down with The Schmo and got hit with the easiest question in combat sports: who wins? What came back was the most diplomatic answer ever delivered by a man who already owns a finish over the guy holding the belt.
“So my prediction is that I believe Hokit very well could win, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it doesn’t make our brand look great when Ciryl Gane beats people. So may the best man win.”
That counts as a prediction about as much as telling your college roommate you two should grab a beer sometime counts as a plan. Jones pointed at Hokit with one hand and kept the other one resting on the Gane exit. I still think there’s a real opinion hiding inside the hedge, and I think that opinion is right. Josh Hokit can beat Ciryl Gane at UFC 334, and the strongest evidence for it is the guy who refused to fully say so.
How Hokit Got Here
Remember, this fight was supposed to be something else. As Ariel Helwani reported, Gane was originally set to fight Tom Aspinall at Madison Square Garden. Then Aspinall withdrew, later vacated the title, and Gane, the former interim champ, inherited the undisputed belt. So the Frenchman’s first defense comes against a replacement who wasn’t on anybody’s title shortlist a year ago.
Except Hokit has been running like a guy who knew the call was coming. He earned his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2025, he’s 10-0 as a pro, and he’s 4-0 inside the Octagon. Three of those wins came inside six months. He knocked out Derrick Lewis at UFC Freedom 250, and then he beat Curtis Blaydes at UFC 327 in a fight so chaotic people were already calling it a Fight of the Year contender. That’s a real heavyweight résumé, built at the pace of a guy who can’t sit still.
The obvious counter is that Gane is a massive step up in experience from anyone Hokit has seen. Fair. Every undefeated prospect looks bulletproof right up until he meets a champion. But Gane also walks into this one as a champ who got the undisputed belt handed over after a vacancy, and I’d love to see him fight like a guy with something to prove instead of a guy protecting a gift.
Jones Is Telling You Something
Strip away the “may the best man win” stuff and look at what Jones actually emphasized. “Josh looks great right now,” he told The Schmo. “He’s doing a great job; obviously he’s coached by some of the best in the world. I’ve always supported wrestlers and backed wrestlers.”
That last line carries weight coming from Jones specifically. At UFC 285 in 2023, in his heavyweight debut, Jones submitted Gane with a guillotine in under three minutes and walked out a two-division champion. When the one man who has made Gane look ordinary tells you he backs wrestlers in this matchup, you should listen to that part and maybe skim the rest.
And yes, Jones has a horse in this race. Hokit trains at Jackson Wink MMA, the same gym that made Jones. You can wave the whole thing off as gym loyalty if you want. I’d push back, because Jones didn’t oversell it. He didn’t promise a knockout or a five-round mauling. He said Hokit “very well could win,” which is a measured take from a guy who could have just hyped his teammate into the stratosphere.
The Hedge Is Hilarious, Though
I have to roast the back half of the answer a little. Jones also said, “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the more people Ciryl Gane beats, it really just shows the specialness of our family and our team.”
Whatever exactly he means by “our brand,” Jones has set this up so he wins no matter what happens in that cage. Hokit pulls the upset? Jackson Wink produced another champion and Jones called it. Gane defends? The brand looks great anyway. He even said he’s rooting for everybody to live healthy lifestyles and do great things in business and family, which is lovely and also the least fight-predictive sentence ever spoken into The Schmo’s microphone.
I love fighters who call their shot. Jones has called plenty of them in his own career. This time he called a shot with the safety on.
My Pick
I’ll do what Jones wouldn’t. Hokit has momentum, a coaching staff Jones vouches for, and a style that, by Jones’s own framing, is the kind he believes in against this opponent. Gane has the experience edge and the belt. I’m taking the undefeated guy who keeps turning up the heat every time the UFC hands him a bigger name, because three wins in six months tells me Hokit isn’t scared of anything, including a champion.
For the record, Jones gave the exact same best-man-should-win answer when he was asked about Alex Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335, after saying Pereira looked hesitant in his June 14 appearance. Two blockbuster heavyweight fights, two shrugs. Somebody get the man a coin to flip.
