Separating Josh Hokit from Josh's nonsense is the game within the game

A common distress you'll hear comedians talk about is the burden they assume to always be "on," which is shorthand in that profession for "funny." Sometimes Bill Burr just wants to go to the grocery store and conserve his mood, but the need to be funny, whenever he gets recognized, makes that simple task difficult.

>I thought about this when Josh Hokit showed up to the Lincoln Memorial during the UFC Freedom 250 press conference and played the role of a fidgety, insecure fighter resisting the urge to let out "The Hok." It's not a particularly funny shtick, nor all that clever. In fact, it's the kind of thing that makes you exhausted just thinking about the efforts, this ongoing commitment to turn atmospheres awkward.

>When he said that night, "I think [Ilia] Topuria's so mad, he's so short he can't see himself in the bathroom mirror … and he married a stripper from Miami," there wasn't as many laughs as there were groans. Dana White himself, unamused by Hokit's stage persona, looked like he'd gotten a bad taco. If Hokit had been at the Apollo, they would have push-broomed him off the stage.

>Instead, Hokit vomited a little on the scales the next morning, while pretending to be unstable on his feet. Give him this, his dedication to the bit, funny or not, is impressive.

>Of course, we all know what happened after Hokit beat Derrick Lewis on the White House's South Lawn. He couldn't resist tossing out the "Michelle Obama is a man" line that he used back at LFA, which did away with all "Celebrating America's 250th Birthday" etiquette. If people thought President Donald Trump having a UFC card at the White House on his 80th was in poor taste, Hokit performed a verbal wedgie to pound home the point.

>"I thought I was giving her a compliment," he said during a 47-minute appearance on "The Ariel Helwani Show"on Tuesday. "Michelle Obama being a man, that's like, she knows how to deal with adversity, she knows how to work hard like a man. When the times get tough, you know, the tough get going."

Hokit was not in character during his appearance on the show, but rather speaking as himself. Never mind that he doubled down on what he said at the White House with some subtle misogyny, which is itself some good, down-home vice signaling — he said he saw the moment as a wonderful opportunity to show the world an example of freedom of speech. We've heard that line a lot of late. At some point, somebody might verse him in the noble traditions of restraint, a thing that's been lost since his personal forefathers — Colby Covington, Bryce Mitchell and Sean Strickland — began blowing past all lines of decency in their efforts to stand out.

>Hokit happily completes that dubious Mt. Rushmore of the UFC's Most Obnoxious, and don't think this is some kind of attack. This is exactly how he wants to be perceived, and this is his way of competing for our elusive attention.

>"Don't hate the player, hate the game, and that's the game we're playing nowadays," he said. "We're playing a numbers game, and I'm going to win it every single time. So, that's how I look at it, and it is what it is."

>How did all this happen? There are going to be those who like Josh Hokit, just as there are plenty who like baboons. Raphael Assuncao had a tattoo of a baboon on the side of his chest because those bad boys back down to nothing in the animal kingdom, even if they're always showing their ass.

>When this thing began, Hokit was merely being accused of being a poor man's Chael Sonnen, with his rehearsed poems and rhymes. Then it was pro wrestling, with nods to "Macho Man" Randy Savage and more directly, the late Hulk Hogan. Hogan, of course, played the role of American hero until his heel turn in the 1990s, and even then, he kept his personal life — which had its share of ugly elements — personal.

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>Hokit keeps them all in his identity rolodex and doesn't see the need to distinguish between the bashful character trying to keep the "Hok" in check, or the "Hok" himself, or the real version of himself, who has a fine backstory for the fight game without any of it.

>As Hokit pointed out to Helwani, he went straight from ending the football season at Fresno State — where he had a fairly exceptional collegiate career as a fullback, scoring 18 overall touchdowns — to cutting weight to compete as a wrestler. That's the kind of dedication that separates him from the pack.

>The way he fought Curtis Blaydes, through three relentless back-and-forth rounds and perhaps six dozen middle fingers, speaks to his better side, too. But the shtick he has going? Hijacking and getting kicked out of the UFC Freedom 250 press conference in Newark for picking fights with Topuria and Alex Pereira, and turning the whole thing into his own personal Mephisto?

>This is perhaps what John Updike meant when he said, "Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face."

>"I'm trying to boost my name in the game," he said, and at all costs of everything that goes into that, he's succeeding. Hokit says he's made seven figures in seven months, which he reckons is the most for a UFC rookie. He says he doesn't regret anything, and in fact is offended by those, like Strickland, who walks back his words in explaining he's only trying to sell a fight.

>"I like the avenue that I chose," he said, and that's something he's got going for him. The game is wicked in that once you start something, there's a need to upstage yourself each time out. If the UFC books Hokit into a high-profile fight against Alex Pereira next — a fighter he called "lackadaisical" in losing his interim heavyweight title fight with Ciryl Gane — people will be expecting him to be "on" the rest of the way.

>And to hear him tell it that's what he intends to do, even if it turns so many off.