It’s been over a week since Ilia Topuria lost to Justin Gaethje. But it continues to remain a central point of conversation. Now, Josh Hokit has come forward with an assessment. While speaking to Ariel Helwani in a recent interview, ‘The Incredible Hok’ presented an unexpected reason behind Topuria’s loss to ‘The Highlight.’

“No… I knew if Gaethje could withstand the storm and just being…,” Hokit told Ariel Helwani. “He had unorthodox things that he was doing, where Gaethje would dip and then grab that uppercut and hit him with the uppercut. It’s untraditional… I think Topuria makes the mistake of… Topuria trains a little too hard in the sense [that] he beats up his teammates.

“So now that the teammates fear him, or now he’s not getting a certain look. That’s the downfall of Topuria, where if you’re always hitting people on the liver, you’re always dropping your teammates, [and] the teammates are kind of shelled up. They’re scared to hit you… no one wants to be dropped in practice. And so I think that probably came into play. You want a healthy balance in practice where the guy is still trying to test you.”

It’s unclear where Hokit got the idea that Ilia Topuria constantly drops his opponents in training. But several clips on social media show Topuria had indeed dropped his training partners in sparring. Yet contrary to Hokit’s point, the fight itself showed there was a different reason behind Topuria’s loss. Despite the loss, Topuria was landing the more significant shots, with 59% of significant shots compared to Gaethje’s 47%. 

Topuria also concentrated on the body more, landing 37 out of 45 compared to Gaethje’s 8 out of 12. This suggests Topuria was trying to target Justin Gaethje’s body once the fight went beyond the first round, hoping to force Gaethje into lowering his guard. This would likely allow the Spaniard to land the finishing combination he had been hoping for all along. However, the early knockout never came, and he kept rushing for it well into the second round. But in doing so, he tired himself out early in the bout, took way too much damage, and even lost his vision in the process, which eventually resulted in his retiring in the corner at the end of the fourth. 

Topuria’s previous opponent, Alexander Volkanovski, had a similar assessment of why Topuria lost. Volkanovski claims Topuria “tried to rush everything very early,” and he took “damage pretty early.” He felt that even though Topuria found “success in the earlier rounds,” the damage was “accumulating” and contributed to the loss. This means Hokit’s assessment of the fight has to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially because they aren’t friends. 

Hokit had clashed with Topuria in the build-up to the fight and made derogatory remarks about Topuria’s ex-wife, stating, “stripper from Miami.” Despite that, Hokit also offered some adjustments to Topuria’s training regimen. 

“And so you have to practice your defense,” Hokit added. “I think that’s why his distance and timing [were] off because of that, and so he was running into the jabs. He was running into different things because people respect him in practice too much.”

While Josh Hokit has his view of what went wrong for Ilia Topuria during the bout, Gaethje’s coach has other ideas about the mistakes ‘El Matador’ made during the bout. 

Justin Gaethje’s coach points out the mistake Ilia Topuria made that cost him the fight

Justin Gaethje’s coach, Trevor Wittman, believes Ilia Topuria made one crucial mistake that ultimately cost him the lightweight title at UFC White House. After Topuria dropped Gaethje with a crushing body shot in the second round, he opted to follow him to the ground instead of continuing his attack on the feet. 

According to Wittman, that decision allowed Gaethje to recover and survive the round before taking over the fight.

“That heat, that humidity, Justin’s a gangster. Overcoming the body shot, I think Ilia made a big mistake there, taking Justin to the ground,” Wittman said. “I think that was a big mistake on Ilia’s part, going to the ground. Because Justin was really hurt. He was hurt.

“And Justin’s just a durable guy. He’s very smart in situations. He knows when to take breaks. There’s times in the fight — the third and the fourth round — where I was like, ‘Stop taking breaks! You’ve got to fight!’ But easier said than done.”

All said and done, Ilia Topuria is now in recovery and likely will not return in 2026. He has called for a rematch against Justin Gaethje, but the latter has made it clear that a rematch is not what he is looking for. So, only time will tell what’s next for the Spaniard.