Josh Hokit has decided Ciryl Gane’s mother is part of the fight now.
Ahead of their UFC 334 title fight, Hokit went after Gane’s mom in his pre-fight remarks, Sportskeeda reported, and framed the whole thing in four words: “We are at war.” The material I have doesn’t include exactly what Hokit said about her, so I’m not going to fill in the blanks for him. He’s been filling them in plenty on his own.
Case in point. In a Tuesday interview with Ariel Helwani, Hokit was asked how he’d respond if Gane tried anything dirty on fight night. He answered with a full escalation ladder, which MMA Orbit clipped and posted on X:
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“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.”
That went from an eye poke to an invasion of France in seven sentences. Somewhere a commission rep just reached for the antacids.
The two got their first look at each other in person on Tuesday in Times Square. MMA Junkie posted video of the faceoff, and words went both ways. Spinnin Backfist posted its own clip of the staredown. A day earlier, Spinnin Backfist also caught Hokit sliding straight into character the moment he spotted Poatan, so the act doesn’t switch off when the cameras pivot.
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It also doesn’t come with a mansion. Hokit told Helwani he still lives in the dorms at Jackson Wink during camp, even with his recent success. He’s had the same room for two years, his stuff is already there, and buying a house seemed like more trouble than it’s worth. The cage and the open mat are a few steps from his door, there’s altitude, and he gets Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn. Then he offered the best line of fight week:
“There’s something about a cockroach crawling across the floor, a crackhead outside keeping you up at night, that reminds you of how it all started for you.”
That’s a heavyweight title challenger choosing roaches over real estate. You can’t make him up.
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UFC 334 goes this weekend, with Gane and Hokit fighting for the heavyweight title.
My take: the mom stuff is cheap, and Hokit has to know it. He also has to know it might work. Gane wins by staying calm and picking guys apart from range, and everything Hokit has done this week, from the foul flowchart to the family shots, looks built to make Gane angry enough to stand in the pocket with him. If Gane keeps his head, all this trash talk turns into a fun clip package. If he doesn’t, Hokit gets the brawl he’s been begging for since Monday, and in heavyweight that’s the fight you want if you’re the underdog.
