Josh Hokit says he’ll fight anyone if he takes the heavyweight title from Ciryl Gane at UFC 334 this Saturday. He just doesn’t expect Tom Aspinall to be one of them.
Asked at Wednesday’s media day in New York whether a win over Gane would set up a fight with Aspinall, Hokit opened the door and then questioned whether anyone was on the other side of it. “When I’m champion, anybody can get a fight,” he said, as MMA Fighting reported. “I’m not going to hold the belt and be sidelined.”
Then he turned to Aspinall’s business choices. “I don’t think he wants to come back. You signed with Eddie Hearn, Dana [White’s] archnemesis. To me, that’s like you’re just trying to get to the money, get a money fight in in boxing.” He followed it with a rhyme about Aspinall wearing glasses while Hokit was “whooping asses, entertaining the masses, in the meantime,” which is about as subtle as Hokit gets.
The glasses line has a real injury behind it. Aspinall’s title defense against Gane, now more than a year old, ended in a no-contest after Gane accidentally poked him in the eyes. Aspinall has been out indefinitely since, still recovering. While he was gone, Gane beat Alex Pereira at UFC White House for an interim belt and was later promoted to undisputed champion, which is the title on the line Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
Hokit’s path there has been quick. Around the time of the Aspinall and Gane mess last year, he was getting ready for his UFC debut against Max Gimenis. He has since gone 4-0 in the promotion, and he remains undefeated. That run includes a fight with Curtis Blaydes that’s in the Fight of the Year conversation and a win over Derrick Lewis at UFC White House. After the Lewis fight, he made an offensive remark about former First Lady Michelle Obama that left even Dana White fuming.
Hokit says the speed is misleading. He pointed out that he has been wrestling since age four and playing football since seven. “People just see how quickly I got to the title, but they haven’t seen the whole process, they just see the four fights,” he said. He also pitched himself as the cure for a division that, in his words, hasn’t had an active champion in a while. “I think it would mean that Gotham is saved,” he said.
My take: Hokit is right that heavyweight needs a champion who actually fights, and Aspinall’s silence leaves room for exactly this kind of jab. Four UFC wins is still four UFC wins, though, and the man across the cage Saturday has already beaten Pereira and gone 15 minutes of nothing with Aspinall only because of a fingertip. Hokit can decide who gets a title shot once he’s holding the belt. On Saturday, November 14, he has to take it from Gane first.
