Josh Hokit says he found out he’d been booked to fight Derrick Lewis on June 14 right after his grueling win over Curtis Blaydes at UFC 327.
Hokit defeated Blaydes in a three-round heavyweight bout in April, a fight that set a record with 354 significant strikes landed in a three-round heavyweight matchup. It was revealed on the UFC 327 broadcast that Hokit would face Lewis at the June 14 event, which will take place in Miami after Donald Trump personally asked Dana White to book Lewis for that card.
Reflecting on the damage and exhaustion from the Blaydes fight, Hokit said, “The tweety birds were circling my head from that fight,” before describing how he processed the news of the quick turnaround. “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 added.
Hokit, 28, said he anticipated a difficult fight with Blaydes as early as a sparring session the week before traveling to Miami for UFC 327.
