Josh Hokit heard the backlash, saw Dana White call out his comment, and still is not apologizing for calling Michelle Obama a man.
After winning at UFC Freedom 250, Hokit got a lot of backlash for calling Michelle Obama a man during his post-fight promo. Dana White later told TIME he was against that kind of “nonsense” and called the remark nasty and false. But while speaking to Ariel Helwani, Hokit tried to explain it away as a compliment.
“I thought I was giving her a compliment — Michelle Obama being a man, that’s like, she knows how to deal with adversity, you know? She knows how to work hard like a man when times get tough.”
Hokit said he picked that moment because UFC Freedom 250 was at the White House, and he wanted to show off free speech. Then he made it even messier, saying people in other parts of the world might not survive saying something like that.
“I thought it was a perfect opportunity to show the world how great this country is — with freedom of speech. You know, you go somewhere and say something like that, and you die. And I’m not suicidal, by the way. I’m in good spirits.”
Hokit made it very clear he is not walking anything back. He said he is not trying to upset Dana White or UFC executives, but believes they would message him directly if they had a real problem with him.
“Oh, never. That’s one thing about my career — I’m never going to backtrack from what I say. Now, I’m not trying to piss off Dana White, Hunter Campbell, and all them, but they would also message me if they really felt a certain way.”
Hokit also said the haters were not there for him when things were bad and he was broken, so he does not care much about their opinions now at all.
“At the end of the day, all the other people weren’t there when I was down. They weren’t there when I was broken. So, I couldn’t care less what anybody thinks.”
At the end of the day, Hokit is leaning all the way in. He got the knockout, got the attention, got Dana White publicly pushing back, and now he is telling everyone he will not backtrack. So one thing’s for sure: Hokit isn’t running away from the controversy. If anything, he’s treating it like another round he plans to keep fighting.
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