Josh Hokit isn't buying that Tom Aspinall is too injured to compete.
Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) vacated his UFC heavyweight title after failing to get cleared by a doctor to defend his belt by the end of the year. Aspinall is yet to fully recover from getting poked in the eyes by Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 last October.
As a result, Gane (14-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) has been promoted to undisputed champion and will defend his title against Hokit (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) in the UFC 334 headliner on Nov. 14 in New York.
"When I'm the champ, I'm giving them four fights a year," Hokit said on "The Ariel Helwani Show." "I ain't doing no p*ssy sh*t like Tom Aspinall, where it's like, sh*t, let's wait 500 days for Jon Jones. That sh*t didn't even come to fruition, and
then he gets punished. When you play it safe in this world, you get punished. I ain't playing it safe, and I'm getting rewarded. So, Tom Aspinall, he was playing it safe. You come back, you fight Ciryl Gane, he pokes the f*ck out of your eye, and now you can't fight."
Aspinall has undergone numerous surgeries to try and repair his vision but is struggling to get his full sight back. Hokit thinks Aspinall has embellished the whole thing and relinquished his belt for another reason after joining forces with Eddie Hearn for management.
"Honestly, even that topic, I don't even think that sh*t's real," Hokit said. "I think he has his teammates farting on his pillow type sh*t. And then he goes to sleep, gets pink eye, posts that sh*t on Instagram, 'Hey, everybody, feel bad for me, I can't fight still.' He has a fake surgery, all that other sh*t. I think he’s just trying to get out of his deal, me being honest.
"Maybe the UFC ain't trying to pay him what he's asking. But it's like, man, his numbers speak for itself. I mean, nobody really cares to watch him fight at the end of the day, not like the bigger names that request that type of money. So, he's over his head on this one. That sh*t's all fake, gang. It's not real. ... I don't know if he's paying doctors, but I think he's trying to get that bag in boxing."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Josh Hokit shares interesting theory on Tom Aspinall vacating UFC title
