Gane vs Hokit: the champion's reach against the heavyweight who sprints at you

Josh Hokit made his UFC debut on November 8, 2025, and needed 56 seconds to knock out Max Gimenis. After four UFC fights and about 30 minutes of cage time in all, he gets Ciryl Gane and the undisputed heavyweight title at Madison Square Garden.

Gane was promoted from interim champion after Tom Aspinall vacated, and Hokit was picked ahead of Alexander Volkov to face him. Gane thinks Volkov deserved it. "With Josh Hokit, he jumped for the title shot," he said in a UFC interview reported by Yahoo. Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes meet in the co-main, but the main event is a simple question: can pace beat range over 25 minutes?

The market has moved hard toward the champion. Gane opened at -150 (58%) and is now -235 (67%). Our model has him at 58%, closer to where this fight opened than where it trades now.

How Hokit got here

The approach is consistent: come forward fast, throw the right hand early, and wrestle when the opening is there. At UFC 324 in January, he "immediately sprinted across the cage" and slammed Denzel Freeman with a double-leg, according to Cageside Press. He spent 3:47 of a 4:59 fight in control. The referee stopped it with one second left in the round, citing exhaustion.

Derrick Lewis was worn down too, in June. In round one Hokit shot a double-leg under a punch, cut him with ground strikes and dragged him down again when he tried to stand. Lewis looked exhausted after a clinch in round two, and a combination dropped him as they came off the fence. Follow-up punches ended it at 4:09, with Lewis landing seven significant strikes to Hokit's 86.

The Curtis Blaydes fight in April matters most here, because it's the only time anyone has hurt Hokit. Blaydes rocked him in round one and took him down twice. Getting up under that weight "was clearly taxing his gas tank," per Cageside. Hokit still won rounds two and three on all three cards, and all 14 media scores on MMADecisions had it 29-28 for him.

They landed 177 and 174 significant strikes on each other, and that one fight shapes his career numbers. Hokit lands 10.28 significant strikes a minute, top of our scale, but absorbs 6.12, in the 6th percentile. With so little UFC time, half of it against Blaydes, both figures are noisy.

Eight inches of reach

Gane is 6'4" with an 81-inch reach; Hokit is 6'1" with 73. Gane works behind the jab, and lately it has been his best punch. It dropped Alex Pereira early in round two of their June interim title fight, per CBS, and he finished it at 1:27. It also drew blood against Aspinall before an accidental eye poke ended that fight as a no contest.

Then there is the body attack. Against Serghei Spivac, Gane buried a "huge knee" in the midsection, per Fighters Only, then added a liver kick, body hooks and a jumping switch knee. Against Tai Tuivasa he landed 30 significant body strikes to four, per Sherdog. Front kicks to the stomach set up the punches that finished it in round three.

Against a challenger built on volume and pressure, we think that matters more than any single head shot. Body knees can sap a wrestler's pace, though Volkov caught one for a takedown in 2024. Gane is also efficient and hard to hit: he lands 61% of his significant strikes and absorbs 2.22 a minute, 97th and 91st percentile.

Hokit can be kicked, too. Gimenis landed a leg kick that nearly took him off his feet in that 56-second debut. Gane went to the legs, inside leg kicks included, against Pereira, Volkov and Aspinall.

Where Hokit can take it

If he gets hold of a leg, Hokit has the better wrestling. Gane's takedown defence is 44%, 11th percentile in our numbers. Jon Jones took him down twice in about a minute in 2023 and submitted him. Volkov put him on his back in rounds one and three of their 2024 rematch.

That third round is the template for Hokit. Gane reversed a shot and went for a kimura, lost top position swinging a leg over, and Volkov rode out the round on top. Gane still got the split decision, but 19 of 20 media scorers had Volkov winning.

The catch is that Hokit's shots get stuffed when opponents are fresh. Lewis stopped one with punches to the side of the head in round two, and Hokit went 0 for 1 against Blaydes. His coach Mike Winkeljohn has said "fighting him at long range would be stupid," via MMA Sucka. Gane told RMC Sport Combat, per MMA Sucka, that he expects Hokit to make the mistake of standing and striking with him anyway.

Rounds four and five

Neither man brings much evidence. Hokit has never fought past round three, and Blaydes is his only UFC fight that went beyond round two. Gane's last 25-minute fight was his January 2022 decision loss to Francis Ngannou at UFC 270, per Sky Sports.

Hokit says he's ready for a tired fight. "I just prepare for when we both get tired — who keeps going?" he told Ariel Helwani. Gane is 36, and Hokit turns 29 two days before the fight.

The worry for Gane is that Volkov third round, when Cageside said he "appeared to have tired". He said afterwards that he believed his toe was broken from the first kick.

On durability, Hokit has the cleaner sheet. He's 10-0, never finished, and no report we read has him knocked down, even through Blaydes' best round. Gane said he was "knocked out" by a Tuivasa right hand in 2022, per Fighters Only, before getting up to win. Pereira landed a big right on him late in round one in June, too.

The guillotine

Hokit's entries also open a submission route for Gane. He shoots double-legs, sometimes under punches, and Gane has shown a guillotine. Late in round one against Volkov, Gane answered a takedown with a choke Cageside called "tight," and only the horn saved Volkov. Earlier in that round, after taking Volkov down himself, he went for a heel hook.

He averages 0.59 submission attempts per 15 minutes, 70th percentile, which is a lot for a kickboxer. Hokit's grappling is wrestling first, and his armbar attempt on Lewis was picked apart by a jiu-jitsu site and mocked by Craig Jones and Gordon Ryan.

Our lean

Our lean is Gane, most likely by stoppage from the third round on. The first round is Hokit's best window, and Gane himself has praised his early pace. If the champion avoids long spells on his back, we think the jab and body work will pile up. Hokit gets hit a lot.

Three things would flip it. The first is an early takedown that sticks for minutes, the way Volkov's did. The second is Gane getting careless chasing a finish, as against Tuivasa, who dropped him with a right and later stumbled him with a left hook. Hokit's right hand, thrown early and often, is the shot most likely to change this fight.

The third is fouls. Jones took a groin kick from Gane in 2023, Aspinall a double eye poke, and Pereira's team wants June's back-of-the-head shots reviewed. Hokit has made cheating the theme of this build-up, and a point taken in a close five-rounder could decide it.