Josh Hokit isn’t sorry. Not even a little.
At UFC 334 media day in New York on Wednesday, the heavyweight title challenger was asked whether he regretted saying “Michelle Obama is a man” during his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan five months ago. He doubled down, and then argued that the setting, the South Lawn of the White House, made it better.
“Was it not a good location to say it? I mean, we’re at the White House. That house represents freedom of speech. I think that was a perfect location to say it,” Hokit said, according to MMA Junkie.
He went further than that. “At the end of the day, my name’s going to live on forever,” he said. “Media people, whatever, you could not like it. It is what it is. I’m here to be remembered. And if I’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, then f*ck it.”
ESPN built its headline on the exchange around the word never, and The Washington Post also ran with the no-regrets angle. That makes this a mainstream story again during fight week, which appears to be the point.
Anyone expecting contrition had a pretty good hint before the question was even asked. MMA Junkie reported that Hokit opened his session with what it described as a roughly five-minute roast, one that included a joke about Kayla Harrison having a penis. Hokit has built a reputation for bigoted remarks during his first year in the UFC, and the Obama line drew the loudest reaction yet, largely because he delivered it at the former First Lady’s old address.
The fight
Strip out the microphone stuff and the résumé is real. Hokit (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) earned his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in August 2025. This past April he beat Curtis Blaydes in a fight that landed on Fight of the Year shortlists. Then came UFC Freedom 250, where he stopped former title challenger Derrick Lewis by second-round TKO. The Obama comment closed out the interview after that win.
That run got him to Saturday, when he meets heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane (14-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) in the UFC 334 main event at Madison Square Garden. It’s Hokit’s first UFC title shot, roughly 15 months after the Contender Series.
Quick take
I like fighters who answer questions straight, and Hokit technically did. The answer just happens to be a guy explaining that free speech is the reason a cheap joke about a woman’s body was a good idea on national television. That bit got him headlines in June and it got him more on Wednesday. The thing it can’t do is stop a 14-2 champion who has spent his career making heavyweights look slow. If Gane does that Saturday night at the Garden, the roast material is going to age very badly, very fast.
