Undefeated heavyweight Josh Hokit will get his long-awaited title shot on November 14, challenging champion Ciryl Gane at UFC 334. The bout, confirmed for Madison Square Garden in New York, headlines a card built around two title fights.
Josh Hokit’s rapid climb to a heavyweight title shot
Josh Hokit, 28, carries a perfect 10-0 professional record, with six knockouts, three submissions and one decision. The Fresno State product, a former college football player and decorated wrestler who went through unsuccessful stints with the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals, switched to MMA in 2023. After runs through Bellator and the Legacy Fighting Alliance, he earned his UFC contract on Dana White’s Contender Series in August 2025. His climb through the heavyweight division accelerated fast from there. In April, he outpointed Curtis Blaydes by unanimous decision, earning a Fight of the Night bonus while setting a UFC record for most significant strikes landed in a three-round heavyweight bout, 177. In June, he followed up with a second-round TKO of Derrick Lewis. Ranked sixth in the heavyweight division by July, Hokit had spent months pushing for a title opportunity, and the matchup with Gane was announced during the UFC 331 broadcast. His résumé so far includes consecutive Performance of the Night bonuses against Max Gimenis and Denzel Freeman, on top of the Blaydes and Lewis wins.
Ciryl Gane defends a belt won under unusual circumstances
Gane, 36, stands 6-foot-5 (196 cm) with an 81-inch (206 cm) reach and carries a 14-2 record with one no contest. An orthodox striker built on a Muay Thai background, he favors distance management, feints and kicks over trading in the pocket. He won the interim heavyweight title on June 14 at UFC Freedom 250, finishing Alex Pereira by second-round TKO. He was elevated to undisputed champion on September 14, after Tom Aspinall vacated the belt due to ongoing medical complications. Dana White initially suggested Gane would not automatically be promoted to undisputed champion before walking the comment back. The Frenchman now enters his first title defense with a championship earned through forfeiture rather than a unification bout, against a surging and heavy-handed contender.
A Madison Square Garden card built around two title fights
UFC 334 streams in the United States on Paramount+ from Madison Square Garden on November 14. The building has hosted only a handful of UFC cards over the years, and the promotion typically reserves the venue for marquee dates on the calendar, which underlines how much weight the organization is putting behind this heavyweight title fight. Alongside the heavyweight headliner, Kayla Harrison defends her bantamweight title against longtime rival Amanda Nunes, a matchup billed as settling the decades-long debate over the greatest women’s fighter in the sport’s history. The rest of the main card includes a welterweight bout between Kevin Holland and Uros Medic, a middleweight clash between Caio Borralho and Bilal Hasan, and two lightweight fights, Jim Miller against Terrance McKinney and Drew Dober against Chris Duncan. The preliminary card features the final fight of Stephen Thompson‘s career, against Charles Radtke. Former champion Tom Aspinall’s return to the division remains uncertain.
What the fight means heading into November
A win would make Hokit, barely two years removed from his NFL exit, the UFC’s heavyweight champion in just his eleventh professional fight, a timeline with few parallels among current titleholders. For Gane, the fight is a chance to validate a title that arrived through Aspinall’s withdrawal rather than a clean unification win, against an opponent already setting UFC heavyweight strike-volume records and ranked among the sport’s rising threats. The card’s build also restores Madison Square Garden as a UFC venue for one of the promotion’s biggest nights of the year, with a heavyweight title fight and a Harrison-Nunes rematch of styles sharing top billing. For American fans, Hokit’s path from NFL training camps to a heavyweight title shot in under three years, built on statement wins over Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis, gives UFC 334 a storyline that stands on its own regardless of who is holding the belt across the cage. More heavyweight contenders can be tracked on our UFC rankings page, alongside profiles of the division’s American UFC fighters.
