Josh Hokit hit the pads, somebody hit record, and now a chunk of the internet thinks Ciryl Gane has a problem.
Training footage of the heavyweight working mitts started making the rounds Monday, when the MMA account Dovy posted it on X and wrote that Hokit was “looking sharp on the pads ahead of his fight vs Ciryl Gane.” By Tuesday, MMA Mania had picked it up, called the pad work “shockingly impressive” and noted that fans were split on what it meant. The loudest camp skipped straight to the prediction, and MMA Mania led its post with it: “He’s going to knock Gane out!”
Not everybody bought in. That’s how pad videos go.
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The fight itself is the main event of UFC 334 on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden. MMA Fighting reports it’s for the undisputed heavyweight title while Tom Aspinall sits out with an eye injury. Gane earned his spot by knocking out Alex Pereira in Round 2 for the interim belt at the UFC White House card in June. A few minutes earlier on that same card, Hokit went to 4-0 in the UFC by knocking out Derrick Lewis.
That 4-0 run is the whole argument for Hokit, and Daniel Cormier has been making it out loud. On his YouTube channel Tuesday, Cormier walked through the résumé. Hokit won his first two, then got thrown in with the No. 5-ranked Curtis Blaydes in his third UFC fight, which Cormier called one of the best heavyweight fights ever. Then came Lewis, a two-time title challenger ranked inside the top 10. Cormier’s math gives Hokit two top-10 wins in a division he said lacks depth. He also admitted Alexander Volkov could have gotten the shot instead, since Volkov already has history with Gane.
Pereira is not on board. He lobbied for an immediate rematch, arguing Gane landed illegal shots to the back of his head during the finish. In an interview with Laerte Viana, Pereira said the UFC leaned on commentators and influencers like Cormier to warm fans up to Gane vs. Hokit before it was announced. His verdict on the whole thing: “it was all kind of manipulated.”
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He didn’t go easy on Hokit, either: “Now this guy who was a nobody is suddenly somebody, you know?”
Cormier denied any of it was scripted, and he answered it straight: “I was not told by the UFC to promote this as the fight to happen,” he said. He added that he considers Pereira a friend and chalked the rest up to a language barrier.
Pereira gets his own work in first. He co-headlines UFC 335 against Sergei Pavlovich on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena, and Cormier said a win there should put him in line for the Gane-Hokit winner.
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My take: pads don’t hit back, and nobody has ever lost a fight to a mitt holder. But Pereira asking what Hokit has done is a strange question about a guy who’s 4-0 with Blaydes and Lewis on the ledger, and a sharp training clip at least tells you Hokit’s camp knows the striking question is coming. Gane is a slick, rangy heavyweight, and those don’t get solved on Instagram. Hokit gets to answer in person on Nov. 14, and I’ll take a guy who earned the shot in the cage over another round of arguing about an interim belt.
