Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White may have tried to humble Josh Hokit. Instead, he fast-tracked him to a UFC title shot.<\/p>\n
Hokit will challenge undisputed Heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane in the UFC 334<\/a> main event next weekend (Sat., Nov. 14, 2026), inside Madison Square Garden in New York City. The undefeated challenger earned the opportunity after winning his first four UFC fights, including victories over Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis.<\/p>\n During a recent appearance on The Jim Rome Show, White admitted Hokit\u2019s controversial personality may have influenced the promotion\u2019s decision to give him difficult matchups.<\/p>\n \u201cHokit [vs. Gane] was the fight to make,\u201d White said. \u201cHokit has been overlooked the whole time \u2014 not only by the fans and media, but me. I didn\u2019t like some of the things he said, so I might\u2019ve thrown some tough guys at him, and he passed every test.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, here he is,\u201d White continued. \u201cLike him or hate him, he\u2019s fought his way to the top, and there\u2019s no denying that this guy deserves this title shot.\u201d<\/p>\n White\u2019s distaste for Hokit began with the heavyweight\u2019s theatrical post-fight interviews.<\/p>\n After knocking out Denzel Freeman at UFC 324, Hokit delivered a lengthy, professional wrestling-inspired speech that included offensive language and a derogatory remark about WNBA star Brittney Griner. White said he didn\u2019t watch the interview live but heard about it afterward.<\/p>\n Hokit\u2019s performance against Blaydes briefly appeared to change White\u2019s opinion. The UFC CEO admitted he still disliked the contender\u2019s \u201cschtick,\u201d but declared that Hokit had \u201cwalked the talk\u201d and earned his respect.<\/p>\n That truce didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n After stopping Derrick Lewis at UFC Freedom 250<\/a>, Hokit used his post-fight interview to call former First Lady Michelle Obama a man. White responded by saying he was against fighters saying \u201cnasty and false things<\/a>\u201d about people\u2019s families and that he \u201chated that kind of nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n When Hokit\u2019s title shot was announced, White made his feelings even clearer.<\/p>\n White may not enjoy listening to Hokit, but he can no longer deny what the undefeated heavyweight has accomplished. Hokit went from Contender Series prospect to UFC title challenger in little more than one year\u2014and every \u201ctough guy\u201d sent his way only moved him closer to the belt.<\/p>\n For the rest of the UFC 334 fight card and Paramount+<\/a> lineup click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White may have tried to humble Josh Hokit. Instead, he fast-tracked him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445,702,264568,4454,3194],"class_list":["post-958849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-mma-social-media-videos","tag-upcoming-ufc-events","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}