Josh Hokit’s corner will have a different look the next time he steps into the octagon.

Following his breakthrough win over veteran heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes at UFC 327, and a subsequent booking against Derrick Lewis for the UFC White House event on June 14, Hokit broke the news that his coach Greg Jackson will not be with him at the historic show:

My coach Greg Jackson will not be coaching me on the White House fight for personal reasons… I don’t have a coach now… will the ring girls corner me please… tag them for me🙏

— The Incredible Hok (@Josh_HokitUFC) April 18, 2026

At the time, Hokit wrote only that Jackson is unavailable for “personal reasons.” One of Hokit’s other coaches, longtime Jackson Wink MMA Academy partner Mike Winkeljohn confirmed the news in an interview with Submission Radio, explaining Jackson will be absent due to “family issues.”

“Greg’s got a few things going on, so correct, Greg won’t be there,” Winkeljohn said. “No need to talk about it, all I know is I have two guys at the White House and it’s time to go for a fight. That’s what it’s all about, how cool this is going to be.”

Hokit vaulted into the rankings with his win over Blaydes, putting a number next to his name in just his third UFC fight, his ninth pro bout overall. The former NFL hopeful is undefeated so far and his back-and-forth battle with Blaydes has him earning early Fight of the Year talk, not to mention his outside-of-the-cage antics that went viral on social media during UFC 327 fight week.

Now he faces another veteran test in Lewis, and even though Jackson won’t be in his corner on June 14, his fingerprints will be all over Team Hokit’s strategy.

“Everyday we’re already game planning what to do with him,” Winkeljohn said. “Everything is straight that way. We’ve already got a good plan of what Derrick does and Greg’s kind of broken down a lot of things. That’s what Greg is such a genius at, he can break down in a strategic manner an overall thing and we start fine-tuning these techniques that we need to work on and sometimes they’re just small things that can make a big difference in a fight.”

Figuring things out on the fly could be a running theme for Hokit, who had no idea he’d be fighting at the White House as he prepared for his UFC 327 clash with Curtis. However, President Donald Trump was cageside at Kaseya Center in Miami and he let UFC CEO Dana White know he’d like to have Lewis fight at the White House.

With Hokit emerging as the star of the night, White had no choice but to do a rare immediate booking of a fighter who hadn’t even had a chance to wipe the blood and sweat off before receiving his next assignment.

“It’s pretty wild. Donald Trump, he wanted Derrick Lewis, he wanted that guy,” Winkeljohn said. “I think he understands that Derrick always brings that excitement, that big punching power, which is scary. Everybody wants to see Josh Hokit. Either you like Josh, you want to see whether he can perform, or now you don’t like him because of his antics and you’re hoping Derrick Lewis hits him and Josh stands still for that. So with that being said, that would not be our plan is to stand there and get hit by Derrick Lewis because that man can hit hard, no doubt about it.

“It was pretty exciting. After the fight I kind of pointed over at Dana and Mr. Trump and I basically just pointed at Josh and I said, ‘Hey, this is the guy. This is the guy.’ It was kind of neat to see that whole thing unfold. I had no idea until it happened that Dana would have thought, ‘Hey, you know what? Josh is the guy to fight Derrick Lewis.’ So it was pretty cool.”

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