Josh Hokit improbably gave the heavyweight division a little life at UFC 327

Speaking in terms of strict improbability, Carlos Ulberg’s personal rendition of “Project Hail Mary” at UFC 327 on Saturday night was pretty high up there. After years of toil to get his shot, there he was, fighting for the lightweight heavyweight belt against an assassin like Jiri Prochazka, with a blown-out knee that he couldn’t put any weight on, in the opening stages of a long five-round fight.

In the old sports phrase book, that’s what’s known as finding yourself with your back against the wall, yet Ulberg did the only thing left for him. He delivered a left hand that sent Prochazka to the canvas, and realistically into the five stages of acceptance.

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That was a highly improbable thing to happen.

As was Paula Costa’s third-round ambush of the unbeaten Amazat Murzakanov. Wasn’t Costa huffing air early in the second round, looking like he was back in Salt Lake City dealing with the altitude for his fight with Luke Rockhold? Somehow Costa, in his new weight class, found the reserves. He put away Murzakanov with a head kick in that third round, and presto, a new player at 205 pounds.

Improbable stuff.

Yet nothing compares, in terms of sheer inconceivability, to what Josh Hokit did against Curtis Blaydes in the swing bout in Miami. This was a heavyweight Shiloh. It wasn’t just that he kept what can only be described as a preternatural pace for a heavyweight fight, in which 351 total significant strikes were landed, or that he broke the UFC’s unofficial record for middle fingers given (Nate Diaz held the previous mark with four, Hokit flipped Blaydes off 761 times), it was that he breathed life into a weight class that was flatlining.

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Heavyweight, in case you haven’t noticed, has been struggling. Mick Parkin is ranked. Tyrell Fortune is top 10. Rizvan Kuniev might be fictional for all the hell we know, who’s to check? But they have him at No. 7. Whether you dig Hokit’s backwoods bard hick-schtick or not, he gave the division a pulse again by taking the fight straight at Blaydes, who was ranked No. 5. He got in his face early, clubbed him with some big shots, chased him to the canvas when he fell, then withstood the many repercussions that came his way.

And that was all in the first couple of minutes. The fight lasted the full 15, and it never really flagged. Both dudes had moments where they looked like they were on the verge of collapse, but, somehow, they kept swinging.

By the end, Blaydes’ face was a wet, wheezing mess, and it was very much like Hokit was slamming his fist into a sloppy potato salad. The last round, in particular, was a sickening squelch of a round. If anything, we’d never seen Blaydes dig so deep to survive. And not only survive but tap into his inner übermesch to deliver Hokit to the brink, as well. Blaydes’ stubbornness was as novel as Hokit’s ultimate death wish, and nobody in Dade County was sure where to place their astonishment. Blaydes returned fire again and again (and again), and you got the sense it was all on principal.

He didn’t want some chump with an American flag bandana and a pair of Oakleys from 1990 to beat him. Understandable, Mr. Razor Blaydes.

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Yet that’s what happened. Hokit “walked the talk,” as Dana White said afterward, as if the gimmick itself were a poodle. Dana says he hates Hokit’s act, but he loves the possibilities. He loves the patriotism. He loves it so much that within an hour of that brutal heavyweight encounter, the UFC — which everybody knows never books fights right after a fight — booked Hokit to face Derrick Lewis at June’s White House card.

Never mind that he was in the equivalent of three car crashes, one per round. President Donald Trump, who was sitting cageside next to Dana, wanted Derrick Lewis on the White House card, and who better to face him than Hulk Hokit? In the same sports phrase book, that’s known as bang for your buck matchmaking.

It is perhaps going a step far to say that Hokit saved a division, but for anyone who had the misfortune of watching Tai Tuivasa and Tallison Teixeira run out of charge together, or Mario Pinto’s sad slabfest against Felipe Franco out in London, his performance certainly breathed a little life into things. The effect was doubled when the UFC announced it had signed blue-chip prospect Gable Steveson during the broadcast. Steveson’s presence at heavyweight is enough to get people to forget its great absentee champion, Jon Jones, who was sitting right next to him in Miami.

It was like a baton pass.

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In the space of an hour, the sun broke through a little bit for the UFC’s big boy class. Is what Hokit did on Saturday night sustainable? Can he show up to the South Lawn against “The Black Beast,” Derrick Lewis, ready to throw hands the way a gambler throws dice at the craps table? Figuratively speaking, wouldn’t that approach get him killed?

Maybe, but for a single night that style gave the heavyweight division a little life.