Fight week for the UFC's annual Madison Square Garden card opened in New York the way the promotion likes it best: outside, at night, in front of a crowd that had not paid for a ticket. On Tuesday evening the four fighters carrying UFC 334's two title fights faced off in Times Square, and the two staredowns told you the whole shape of Saturday night. One was loud. The other barely moved.
The loud one belonged to the main event. Heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane (14-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC), in a leather jacket over a hoodie, met unbeaten challenger Josh Hokit (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC), who showed up in a New York Yankees jersey, according to MMA Junkie. Both men started with sunglasses on. The glasses came off, the distance closed, and the words started — Hokit doing most of the talking, as he has all week, including a repeated one-word taunt directed at the champion that Athlon Sports reported he refused to translate, insisting Gane already knew what it meant. Gane mostly let him talk. He has heard the act before and graded it earlier in the week: “He pretends he's a clown, he's stupid, but he's not. He's really not,” Gane said of Hokit, via MMA Junkie.
Strip the noise away and the fight underneath it is genuinely strange: a champion who was elevated from interim status after Tom Aspinall vacated the undisputed title, making his first defense against a challenger who has needed exactly four UFC wins to arrive here. Hokit's camp, per Bloody Elbow's reporting, plans to replace kickboxing range with pressure and takedowns — the oldest recipe there is for a mobile striker, and the hardest one to cook for five rounds. The market is not buying the upset yet: FanDuel opened Gane at -210 and Hokit at +162, with Harrison -196 and Nunes +152 in the co-main, per Action Network.
The quiet one is the bigger fight
Harrison and Nunes did not need words. The two former American Top Team teammates stood inches apart with Harrison's women's bantamweight belt over her shoulder and exchanged what MMA Junkie described as intense stares in front of the gathered fans. Harrison (19-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) won the title by submitting Julianna Peña at UFC 316. Nunes (23-5 MMA, 16-2 UFC) is the only woman ever to hold two UFC titles at the same time, and she has not fought since beating Irene Aldana in June 2023. Champions who retire on top do not usually come back for the hardest grappler the division has ever produced — a two-time Olympic judo gold medalist who took her belt from the woman who once took it from Nunes. There is a reason this is the co-main event in name only.
Video: Harrison and Nunes face off in Times Square on Tuesday, via YouTube.
One more dance for Wonderboy
Underneath the title fights, Saturday also closes a 14-year account. Stephen Thompson, 43, confirmed this week that his featured prelim against Charles Radtke is the last fight of his career. “It's my last one,” Thompson told James Lynch. “What better place to have it than Madison Square Garden, New York City?” On Monday he gave Ariel Helwani the longer version: he no longer sees a title at the end of the road, his body stopped healing on schedule — a split shin after his July 2025 loss to Gabriel Bonfim, then knee and neck trouble — and in September he became a father to a baby girl. “I don't see the title anymore,” he said. “These guys are just young studs coming up. I'm not trying to get hurt.” Thompson (17-9-1) challenged for the welterweight title twice in this same building, against Tyron Woodley, and leaves as the most decorated pure striker the division has had. Jim Miller, meanwhile, makes his 48th UFC appearance on the same prelim card against Terrance McKinney — a promotion record, and the other end of the same lesson about how long a career can run.
The four title fighters share a stage twice more before Saturday: the pre-fight press conference on Thursday and the ceremonial weigh-ins on Friday, per MMA Mania. The card itself starts with early prelims at 5 p.m. ET, prelims at 7 p.m. and the main card at 9 p.m., all on Paramount+. Everything after Times Square is just the wait. Tonight's full fight roundup has the rest of the week's business, including the Istanbul title fight that ended in a ring invasion.
Sources · 7 sources
- MMA Junkie — the Times Square faceoff reports and UFC 334 Countdown
- MMA Mania — the Times Square faceoffs and the week's remaining schedule
- Athlon Sports — Hokit's repeated taunt at the faceoff
- Action Network and Covers — UFC 334 odds and start times
- Bloody Elbow — Hokit's reported pressure-and-wrestling game plan
- Sherdog and MMA Sucka — Stephen Thompson's retirement comments
- MMA News — the UFC 334 card preview
