Josh Hokit has a message for Ciryl Gane ahead of their UFC 334 heavyweight title fight: if fingers start going into eyes Saturday night, he isn’t going to be the only one wiping his face.
The challenger’s comments came from an interview with Full Send MMA that Spinnin Backfist circulated on X Tuesday. The account summed it up as Hokit being willing to go “eye poke for eye poke” against the champion, and added that he said “alot of other stuff too.” A second post from the same account joked that “the universe is going to explode” if Hokit lands the first poke.
The jab lands where it hurts. Eye pokes have trailed Gane for a while, and Hokit is plainly telling the referee, the champ and anybody watching that he’ll police it himself if the official doesn’t. That puts some pressure on whoever gets the assignment Saturday.
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The camp, the bet and the backing
Hokit is doing all of this from a dorm room. He told Ariel Helwani that he still lives in the dorms at Jackson Wink during camps, even after his recent run, because the conditions keep him honest.
“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,” Hokit said.
He also pointed to the practical side: the cages and open mat are right outside his door, he’s had the room for two years, and he’d rather do that than buy a house. He credited the altitude and the presence of Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn as the other selling points.
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He’s got some notable names in his corner, figuratively and financially. Sean Strickland, posting on his own channels, picked Hokit to win and went straight at Gane’s grappling.
“When [Gane] fought Jon Jones, his wrestling was so bad. Josh Hokit is a smart guy, he’s gonna take him down. I’m thinking either a TKO or submission in the 2nd or 3rd round,” Strickland said.
Then there’s Jorge Masvidal, who put $200,000 on Hokit according to a clip from UFC on Paramount shared by Dovy Simu on X. A Hokit win would pay Masvidal $1 million. That payout tells you exactly how the books see the challenger’s chances, and Masvidal decided he likes those numbers anyway.
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Hokit has been in full performance mode all week. Spinnin Backfist also posted a clip Monday of him slipping right into character the moment he ran into Alex Pereira.
My take
I’ll take a heavyweight who tells you plainly what he plans to do over another round of polite respect talk and promises to sort it out on fight night. Hokit’s line is a tactic as much as trash talk. He’s lobbying the ref in public before anyone touches gloves, and if Gane’s hands drift open on Saturday, every replay is going to get a close look. Strickland’s read is the one that matters, though. If Hokit gets this fight to the mat the way Jones did, nobody’s going to remember the eye poke talk. If he doesn’t, Masvidal is out $200,000 and Hokit goes back to the cockroaches in Albuquerque.
