Josh Hokit had a fight for the ages with Curtis Blaydes at UFC 327, and then minutes later, he had to try to fathom fighting at the White House.
Hokit defeated Blaydes in one of the best heavyweight fights in UFC history in April, and then it was revealed on the broadcast that Hokit was facing Derrick Lewis — who President Donald Trump personally asked Dana White to book that night in Miami — at the June 14 historic event.
The 28-year-old had a lot of emotion, adrenaline, and fatigue running through him when he found out about this massive opportunity.
“The tweety birds were circling my head from that fight,” Hokit told MMA Fighting. “It wasn’t so much like he punched me so hard the tweety birds were circling around, but I mean, if there’s like some birds floating around you from exhaustion, that was what was circling around me. And then one of the birds just stopped and said, ‘Hey, you want to fight at the White House?’
“And I’m like, ‘White House?’ That’s all I heard. Boom, let’s do it. I don’t know if my ankle’s broken and my jaw, my face hurts, and my hands hurt, and I was like, ‘White House?’ I don’t even care if I’m cleared one week before. Let’s find a way. Let’s do it.”
Hokit wasn’t able to attend any post-fight media at UFC 327 after the biggest win of his career as he was sent to a local medical facility, along with Blaydes. The fight set a record for most significant strikes landed in a three-round heavyweight bout with an astounding 354 between the two competitors.
While Hokit is usually loud and in full character ahead of a fight, his mind was in a lot of different places when he left the arena and got potential career-altering fight news.
“That’s when we f*cking rolled into the hospital together on those little beds or whatever you call them,” Hokit said. “And I was like, ‘Curtis, you could have made it easy. You could have just gave up and we didn’t have to go through all this.’ But props to him. Props to him for… I keep saying that maybe he believes in Jesus, or a divine power because that’s what was holding him up.
“I know it’s powering me, but I don’t know what he believes in. There was something special about whatever was keeping him up. I was hitting him with clean, precise punches, and he was just there. He wasn’t going anywhere.”
Before Hokit turns his attention to the Nation’s Capital and facing the UFC’s all-time knockout leader, “The Incredible Hok” reflects once more on the build to the Blaydes matchup, and how he somewhat expected the fight the get as crazy as it did with a bit of intuition.
“I mean, a week before even going out to Miami, I remember I had a sparring session and I was like – to Greg Jackson – ‘I think this fight might be a war,’” Hokit explained. “Just [because of] how I was feeling, how my training’s playing out. I’m like, I have a feeling.
“Because when I watch the film, I look at indicators of if the guy breaks or not, or shows any type of weakness. And, for the most part, Curtis never put that on tape, and he has like the most takedowns in a heavyweight fight, or in the heavyweight division, and that takes a lot of cardio. So usually, cardio, mental toughness, that goes hand in hand, and so I knew it was a possibility, but you never really plan it to go like that.”
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