Jon Anik is fascinated by Josh Hokit, especially after what he accomplished at UFC 327.
Hokit stole the show in Miami with an incredibly gritty, all-time battle against Curtis Blaydes, winning a unanimous decision and throwing himself into the top-10 rankings in just his third UFC fight. The Fight of the Year contender helped earn Hokit two post-event bonuses, an extra $200,000, and a fight on the UFC White House card on June 14 for his efforts.
Ahead of the fight, Hokit leaned into his bizarre character, and was getting go-away heat from the vast majority of the MMA community — even Dana White wasn’t a fan of his antics. But after Hokit’s outing, Anik recounts the UFC 327 fight week experience with “The Incredible Hok.”
“Well hopefully a lot of people have gone back and watched the lead horse Mark Hunt and Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva, December 2023 in Brisbane, Australia, because this is the fight that people are comparing this to just in terms of its heavyweight greatness all time in the UFC,” Anik told MMA Fighting. “So Henry Cejudo, for all of his cringe and for as much adoration as I have for him, he never made me laugh out loud. And even though Josh Hokit is cringy at times, and our fighter meeting was completely fruitless. This dude makes me laugh out loud, right?
“Even though I’m sort of put off by some of the antics, he got me in the fighter meeting to laugh out loud, and at the official weigh-in, got me again, So I do think there’s some merit to what he’s doing, maybe more than some of his contemporaries that have tried with a shtick like this. But bro, You just can’t even make it up, and that’s why I think mixed martial arts is the greatest sport in the world and why it truly is the most unpredictable theater in live sport, because President [Donald] Trump has always wanted Derrick Lewis on the card, and Joe Rogan’s been talking about a 7th fight and Rogan starts pining for Hokit to find his way on the card, and the next thing you know, everything comes together and they booked the fight. Bro, I mean, like of all of Josh Hokit’s dreams, right?
“Like if you would have said to him on Friday, ‘Hey man, you can manifest this, you can get a double bonus, greatest heavyweight fight of all time in the UFC, and they’re going to book you on the already filled up White House card on June 14th.’ Yeah, man, walking the walk doesn’t even begin to describe it. So congrats to Josh Hokit.”
Anik mentioned the fighter meeting during UFC 327, saying Hokit was in character the entire time he was in the room with the broadcast team. But Anik said there was a moment where he made the longtime UFC play-by-play voice lose it a little bit in laughter — and again later in the week.
“So I don’t know exactly what the utterance was,” Anik said. “Maybe he said to Daniel Cormier at some time, like, ‘Now you’re playing along,’ or something. Like at one point he broke character and said to DC, ‘Now you’re playing along,’ or ‘Thanks for playing along,’ or whatever it was.
“And just the body language at the morning weigh-in got me, right? With all his sort of timidity and everything else. But yeah, I mean, when Dana White says that’s not my thing, largely that’s my thesis statement too. If they assigned me a one-on-one with him leading up to the White House show, an interview, how much can I extract from him? Is he going to be right? Because our first fighter meeting with him was not that, right? It was a lot different, you know, so yeah, we’ll see.”
Hokit is still undefeated, and now sits at 3-0 in the UFC. The Bellator veteran has gotten opportunities he couldn’t get with the now defunct MMA promotion, and a move to the UFC was always what the doctor ordered, according to Hokit in an interview with MMA Fighting this past May.
“I was like, why am I even fighting in the first place? I’m not fighting to be PFL champion,” Hokit said about his decision to leave the company. “I’m fighting to be UFC champion. So that’s the goal of mine is I want to be in the UFC.”
Hokit is not only in the UFC and making a dent, but has become an intriguing fighter to watch and ask questions about as his breakout campaign continues on.
“I just don’t know how good he is yet,” Anik explained. “I think we’re all curious to see just how far he can take it athletically. The pedigree is there, but how good can he be? How good a puncher can he be? I don’t know. …
“A guy accomplishing more in a third UFC appearance in UFC history certainly hasn’t happened, and it’s just going to be fascinating to see how he fares in some of these fights. He might get to a title fight before he fights someone like Sergei Pavlovich, but how do you fight a guy like that, or an Alexander Volkov? These guys, who have been there and done that, haven’t realized a UFC world title, but how does Hokti match up against those guys?
“I think it’s going to be absolutely fascinating to find out. I mean, he certainly is a dog. He’s got Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn in his goddamn corner, which is an interesting juxtaposition. We’ll see.”
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