Josh Hokit walks into Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Nov. 14, carrying an unbeaten record and, by his own account, someone else’s game plan. Speaking on the UFC 334 Countdown Show, the 10-0 heavyweight said he is drawing real confidence from Jon Jones’ first-round submission of Ciryl Gane. He also credited the coaches around him, many of whom helped build that win.
“My coaches are familiar with Ciryl Gane,” Hokit said, as Bloody Elbow reported. “My coaches know how to beat him because it’s already happened.”
Then he went further. “The Jackson-Wink camp, they know how to beat Ciryl Gane in under two minutes.”
The reference point is UFC 285 in March 2023, when Jones and Gane met for the vacant heavyweight title. Jones, the former light heavyweight champion, took Gane down, locked in a guillotine choke and got the tap at 124 seconds, 2:04 of Round 1. It remains the only stoppage loss on Gane’s record. Greg Jackson worked Jones’ corner that night. Hokit now trains at Jackson-Wink MMA, the Albuquerque gym where Jones spent much of his career, and he believes that institutional memory travels.
Mike Winkeljohn, the other half of the gym’s name, coached Jones for years, although he wasn’t in the corner at UFC 285. He sees Hokit’s path to the belt running through cardio and pressure rather than one perfect shot.
“The advantage that Josh has over Ciryl is definitely the conditioning factor behind it,” Winkeljohn said. “He can change levels, accelerate forward, play the game outside, and mess with your head. So, you are fighting a really high-level, intelligent strategist.”
Winkeljohn’s version of the fight sounds less like a two-minute blitz and more like a slow squeeze. “Josh will not be beaten. Josh is going to slowly figure out a way to close the gap,” he said. “It’s gonna be a lot of chaos going on for Ciryl that he’s going to have to deal with, and Josh will find a way to finish him.”
There is already a standby in waiting. Johnny Walker has offered to “do something crazy” if either Gane or Hokit falls out of the card, so the matchmakers at least have a phone number ready this week.
The two coaches tell slightly different stories, and I’d trust Winkeljohn’s more. Hokit’s quote is a great sound bite, and it’s fair to say Jackson-Wink has studied Gane as closely as any gym on earth. A blueprint still has to be built by the man in the cage, though. Jones in 2023 was a long-reigning champion with years of experience at the elite level, and what he did that night belonged to him as much as to the corner. More than three and a half years have passed since UFC 285, and Gane has had all that time to watch the same tape Hokit’s coaches are watching. Winkeljohn’s emphasis on conditioning, level changes and wearing Gane down over rounds feels like the realistic plan. The 10-0 record means Hokit has never lost, and Saturday at the Garden is where he finds out whether a borrowed map gets him to the same place.
