Stipe Miocic gave Casino.org a scouting report on Josh Hokit that any heavyweight coach would sign. Then he took a shot at Hokit’s personality, and if you read that part twice, it becomes the best sales pitch for Hokit’s whole act that anybody has delivered this fight week.
Start with the part where Miocic is completely right. Hokit is 10-0, 4-0 in the UFC, and on Nov. 14 he walks into Madison Square Garden to challenge Ciryl Gane (14-2, 11-2 UFC) for the heavyweight title in the UFC 334 main event on Paramount+. That’s a fast elevator ride to the penthouse. Miocic called him tough and getting better every fight, but also “still relatively new,” and his technical note was the kind of thing you’d hear screamed from a corner between rounds: “He just needs to remember to keep his hands up and not get cracked, but I mean, that’s the heavyweight division.”
No argument here. Four UFC fights is four UFC fights, and the guy across the cage has 11 wins inside the Octagon. Miocic also pointed out that Hokit is a wrestler, “so he’s always got that in his back pocket if something goes bad.” File that away, because it matters more than anything Hokit says into a microphone this week.
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The shtick review
Now the fun part. Miocic doesn’t love the persona. “It’s a shtick,” he said, adding that it’s not his style and closing with “Sometimes I just think he’s a little too much.”
Fine. A little too much is the entire job description of a good villain. Nobody ever bought a pay-per-view because a guy was a respectful amount of annoying.
And here’s where Miocic hands Hokit the win without meaning to. In the same breath, he said “maybe if I’d have thought about that a bit more and acted that way during my fighting days, then I would have made more money, but I’m not really worried about it.” He followed that with “When I was fighting, I was there to fight. I’m not there to promote.”
Respect to that approach. It’s a legit way to have a career. But think about what Miocic just admitted. One of the most accomplished heavyweights you’ll ever hear from looked at the guy whose act annoys him and said, out loud, that the act probably pays better. That’s a review from a critic who walked out of the movie and then told you it’ll gross a billion dollars.
I love a heel. I love press conference chaos. I’ll take a guy who calls his shot over a guy who reads a statement about being blessed and thanking his team every single time. Hokit has also backed up the noise, which is the only thing that separates a villain from a clown. He’s coming off a Fight of the Year contender against Curtis Blaydes and a first-round knockout of Derrick Lewis. Running your mouth after beating those two names is basically sending an invoice.
Gane isn’t buying a ticket
The problem is that the act has two audiences, and only one of them is listening. Fans are clearly hooked. Gane says he isn’t. Speaking to RMC Sport Combat, in a clip shared by RedCorner_MMA on X, Gane said Hokit’s trash talk won’t work on him unless Hokit goes after his mother.
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Spinnin Backfist responded on X with a simple “Oh no…”, which was the correct reaction, because the internet read that as an invitation. Please, Josh, don’t. Mom material is the lowest-effort genre in fight promotion, and it usually blows up on the guy who tries it. Gane basically drew one line in the sand and told Hokit everything else bounces off. If Hokit spends fight week hunting for a nerve, he’s wasting energy on the one part of his game that won’t show up on the scorecards.
That sends us back to Miocic’s scouting report. If the mind games don’t rattle Gane, Hokit wins this fight the way he got here: forward pressure, heavy hands, and that wrestling in the back pocket. The talk gets the Garden loud. The takedowns are what actually take the belt.
Other people are doing Hokit’s hype work for him, too. Chris Weidman has compared him to Cain Velasquez, and so has Fernand Lopez, who happens to be Gane’s head coach. Your opponent’s own coach putting you in Cain’s category is the funniest pre-fight subplot of the year. Miocic stopped short of signing off on that one, saying “I don’t know if he’s on Cain’s level, but that’s a good category to be put in,” before adding “Cain was a freak. He was an absolute animal.”
My take: Miocic nailed the fight analysis and missed on the persona. The shtick works. It’s selling a heavyweight title fight at MSG for a guy with 14 pro fights total, and Miocic himself thinks it’s worth money. Where he’s right is that none of it touches Gane, so on Nov. 14 the act has to step aside and the wrestler has to show up. If Hokit keeps his hands up, he gets to be a little too much with a belt on his shoulder. If he doesn’t, “not get cracked” becomes the quote everybody reposts the next morning.
