Josh Hokit backs Sean O’Malley ahead of UFC White House

Sean O'Malley has publicly backed Josh Hokit ahead of UFC Freedom 250 on June 14 at the White House, acknowledging that he should have stepped in during a heated altercation between Hokit and fellow fighter Alex Pereira at a promotional press conference in Newark last month.

The card features Hokit (9-0) taking on Derrick Lewis (29-13), O'Malley (19-3) facing Aiemann Zahabi (14-2), Pereira (13-3) challenging Ciryl Gane (13-2) for the interim heavyweight title, and lightweight champion Ilia Topuria (17-0) defending against Justin Gaethje (27-5) in the main event.

During the Newark presser, Hokit launched criticism at Pereira, who is not fluent in English. Topuria came to Pereira's defense by throwing water at Hokit, leading to Hokit being escorted out before the situation escalated. O'Malley later admitted to MMAFighting.com that he lacked confidence to support Hokit while sitting near knockout artist Pereira. "When you are that close to Alex Pereira, you don't really think about talking s—t," O'Malley said, joking that he should have "gotten behind [Hokit], and then started talking s—t."

Hokit welcomed O'Malley's late support and expressed confidence the former bantamweight champion could defeat Topuria, tweeting: "Sean would snipe Topuria ALL NIGHT LONG‼️‼️‼️USA USA USA‼️‼️‼️"