Josh Hokit gets pepper sprayed in training to 'prepare' for Ciryl Gane eye pokes before UFC 334

Unbeaten heavyweight Josh Hokit has taken his trolling of UFC heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane to a new level. Less than two weeks before he challenges Gane for the title in the UFC 334 main event on November 14 at Madison Square Garden in New York, Hokit posted a training-camp video in which he and a training partner spray each other in the eyes with pepper spray they believed was fake. The clip went viral overnight into Sunday, November 1, after Championship Rounds shared it from Hokit's own X account.

'I thought this was fake'

The video, filmed inside a gym cage, opens with the partner spraying Hokit in the face. According to Combat Sports UK and the clip itself, Hokit immediately screws his eyes shut and shouts: "It actually f*cking burns. I thought this sh*t was fake!" Hokit then sprays his partner back, and the partner ends up on the mat, with one of them yelling that the product "said it was fake online."

The partner explained the plan at the end of the video. "The idea was like, we got this fake pepper spray and we were gonna do like mitts after, but it burned into our f*cking eyes," he said, as quoted by Combat Sports UK. "And then he got me with it and God, it was like a Ciryl Gane eye poke thing."

The post was framed as preparation for the eye pokes Hokit expects from the champion. It was clearly played for laughs, and nothing in the clip suggests either man was seriously hurt.

Why eye pokes are the running joke

Gane's fouls have become one of the biggest talking points of the UFC 334 build. His title fight with Tom Aspinall at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi in October 2025 was ruled a no contest at 4:35 of the first round after an accidental eye poke left Aspinall unable to continue. As MMA Junkie reported, Aspinall later needed multiple eye surgeries and vacated the belt after not being cleared to compete, and Gane was promoted to undisputed champion.

Gane then stopped Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 in June, but Pereira and his camp complained about strikes to the back of the head in the finishing sequence. Last week the UFC released corner footage in which Pereira's head coach, Plinio Cruz, can be heard shouting "back of the head" during the finish.

Gane does have defenders. Former bantamweight champions Dominick Cruz and T.J. Dillashaw said on Cruz's "Love & War" podcast this week that the Frenchman is not a cheater, and Dillashaw said the criticism had been "blown out of the water" since the Pereira fight.

Not the first eye-poke joke

Hokit has been making fun of the topic for weeks. In early October, on Michael Bisping's "Believe You Me" podcast, he joked that he gets poked in the eye "100 times a day" in training and took a shot at Aspinall, according to AgentMMA. Bisping called the Aspinall line a "low blow."

UFC 334 details

• Main event: Ciryl Gane (14-2) vs Josh Hokit (10-0) for the UFC heavyweight title, Gane's first defense of the undisputed belt.
• Co-main event: Kayla Harrison vs Amanda Nunes for the women's bantamweight title.
• Date and venue: Saturday, November 14, Madison Square Garden, New York.