Can playing the right walkout tune see you beatdown to the beat, or will you be waltzing out of the Octagon on a bum note? It’s time to face the music.

UFC 117, Oakland, California, 2010. Fans eagerly await one of the most hyped matchups in history.

As the lights dim and the 13,000-strong arena is met with silence, enter UFC middleweight champion Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva to rap superstar DMX’s Aint No Sunshine blasting out of the colossal sound system, sending the crowd into raptures.

Just minutes earlier, his challenger, Chael Sonnen, calmly walked out to country singer Daryl Singletary’s Too Much Fun. Their choices spoke volumes about their characters – a former Chute Boxe fighter from the mean streets of Brazil and a tenacious country boy from Oregon.

In the pre-fight build up, Sonnen was keen to make a statement.

“The guys in the back know who the tough guy is. If we walk in the back dressing room and Anderson says put on hip-hop and Chael walks in and says put on country, I guarantee it’s gonna be a hoedown.”

And although Sonnen lost via a triangle choke in the dying minutes of the fight, it certainly was a hoedown, with the underdog brutally pounding the champ for four-and-a-half rounds.

His country tones clearly topping the billboard, even if Chael himself ultimately missed the beat.

It’s evident that fighters value music as an integral part of their game. Having the right walkout tune can get you pumped up, focused, calm, or simply in good spirits.

Whether you prefer to battle it out to Dr Dre, throwdown to James Brown, or even hit the matts to Fleetwood Mac, can music be powerful enough to supercharge your game and ensure victory?

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell certainly thinks so. A huge fan of heavy metal, Liddell uses music as a valid training tool. “It really helps when you’re training, it just gets you so fired up,” he states. And who needs to be fired up more than ‘The Iceman’?

Once dominating the UFC’s arguably most competitive division for nearly three years, Liddell accredits his formidable reign partly to his ability to choose the right walkout tune.

“Music taps into that primal part of you and takes you to a place where you can just channel your aggression into something positive, and devastating,” he adds. 

The shrinks agree. Joe Bell, a sports psychologist specializing in mixed martial arts, believes selecting the right walkout music can pay dividends come fight night.

“Music is a powerful but often untapped motivational tool for any serious athlete,” states Bell. “Studies suggest that the correct music can have a huge impact and heighten an athlete’s performance by up to 22%.”

Yet a fighter can’t just slam on any old tune to guarantee they bring the fight. According to Bell, it has to have meaning.

“The key to tapping into our positive emotions is choosing the right kind of music. Fighters must select music where they can associate or have made a connection with the lyrics or they have interpreted a deeper meaning from it.”

Tito Ortiz, another former UFC 205lb champion and infamous rival to Chuck Liddell, is just one fighter who uses music’s deeper meaning to create an emotional connection.

“It’s funny because it’s just little things like [Tupac lyrics] ‘Rollin’ in my 500 Benz’... it’s money, it’s all material things,” he says.

“But when you come from a poor family and you don’t have anything and you see everyone having all that stuff, you get really jealous of it.

I had to pretty much put on an act in front of people because I didn’t want them to know that I was poor.” 

One of Ortiz’s favorite walkout tracks is Eminem’s Mosh, a rap star Ortiz states he can emotionally relate to. “He never took the easy way out.

He always had a challenge during life,” says Ortiz. “So many people were hating on him because he was doing stuff that no one would expect him to be doing.

I would see myself in that, because when I started in the UFC, I was doing a lot of sh*t that no one wanted me to do. I mean, flipping off the other guy’s corner, wearing T-shirts that said some gnarly things.

I was the bad boy. It was just a given that I had something in common with him. He came from a trailer park, he didn’t have a father.

I had parents, but they were on drugs all the time.”

With such a vested emotional attachment to a certain song, it’s easy for fighters to get riled up. Yet UFC stars such as Yoshihiro Akiyama and Leonard Garcia prefer more mellow tracks to help them keep their cool. “I really don’t like rap music to walk out to. I feel like I’m a real high-strung person already. If I get something that pumps me up like that then I go out there and make mistakes. So I need happy music to calm me down and keep me level so I don’t get caught up,” says Garcia.

Garcia is clearly (ahem) on the right track. Research by Costas Karageorghis, a sports psychologist at Brunel University, London, suggests that specific music heard ‘asynchronously’ (as background music i.e. music you can potentially ignore) can calm nerves to enhance sporting performance by as much as 10%.

Whether you’re a raging beast or a calm and collected assassin, your choice of music will often reflect your character. “Musical preference is so highly individualized and often reflects the nature of a fighter,” offers Bell. “For example, Brock Lesnar walks into Metallica’s Enter Sandman. It’s thrashy, explosive and aggressive compared with Jon ‘Bones’ Jones who walks into Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State of Mind, which is more upbeat, focused yet unpredictable.”

The UFC is also no stranger to weird and wonderful walkout tunes.

The right walkout tune can also get the crowd behind you, as it did with the ever-eccentric UFC middleweight Tom Lawlor.

Entering UFC 100 to the Baha Men’s Who Let The Dogs Out? the crowd instantaneously began singing along and howling as Lawlor walked one of his cornermen into the Mandalay Bay Events Center on a leash, complete with a bone in his mouth.

While Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller’s Strikeforce and Pride ring walks are a YouTube sensation.

While music can be inspirational, there are pitfalls when choosing which beat you want to brawl to.

“The biggest minefield for fighters is ‘timing,’” says Bell.

“So you’ve made the right choice of music, but play it at the wrong time (backstage or in the hotel) and it may ignite the body into preparing for ‘fight time,’ which causes arousal levels to peak too soon. Consequence: focus slips and vital energy stores are drained.”

Just like a real fight, timing is of the essence. And it’s not just choosing the right time to listen to a tune that can determine the outcome of a fight – it’s also the timing of the beat.

“To achieve effective impact in using music to maximize performance depends on the activity and level stress experienced,” adds Bell.

“In training, pay attention to the tempo of music. Fast tempi are associated with higher levels of arousal than slow tempi. It’s about matching the tempo of music with the intensity of drills.

For example, when training at around 70% of aerobic capacity (skipping, pad work or grappling) mid-tempo music (115–125 beats per minute) is more effective than faster music of (135–145 beats per minute) which is geared up for all out 100% fight simulation training.”

So, if it’s Time to Say Goodbye to your opponent with a bit of Bocelli as you go on a Rampage to PAK, in the words of rap group D12, ‘This kind of music, use it, and you get amped to do sh*t, whenever you hear some sh*t and you can’t refuse it... this is fight music!’ 

Let the bodies hit the floor.

Oregon jamboree

Chael Sonnen is the stereotypical country music-loving fighter in that he is known for his hard work, relentless pressure and ability to simply get the job done. However, his skill set is often found wanting against greater and more efficient technicians, the hallmarks of a genuine blue-collar country boy... Yee-ha!

What your music says about your fighting style

Metal

• Pros: You’re supercharged, ready to roll, volatile and a wild card.
• You never hold back from bringing the fight and love to go in all guns blazing, ensuring you’re a fan favorite.
• Cons: Fighting with such reckless abandon can often leave you exposed, leading to a knockout or a chance to be taken down and ground ‘n’ pounded. Like many heavy metal loyalists, you tend to stick to what you know.
• Notable metal heads: Brock Lesnar, Josh Barnett, Dan Hardy

Rap

• Pros: You have attitude and confidence that is reflected in your fiery performances. You bring superstar quality to your division with a fine blend of showbiz and mean-street grit.
• Cons: Your confidence can often lead to arrogance, increasing the chance of you getting caught out. You’re loved by the masses yet hated by the purists.
• Notable rap stars of MMA: Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Nate Diaz

Classical/world

• Pros: Outside of the Octagon you’re a cool and calm character with a deep respect for philosophy and ‘the self.’ 
• Yet when you step in the cage you’re able to release all rage and fight so beautifully it plays out like a tragic 21st-century adagio.
• Cons: In an ideal world, every one of your punches would be delivered with grace, yet inside the hard-wire fences of the Octagon you’re often forced to slug it out, taking you out of your comfort zone.
• Notable warriors of Wagner: Yoshiro Akiyama, BJ Penn, Lyoto Machida

Country

• Pros: Holding a deep respect for hard work and woe, you’ve learned to grind out the victory through sheer tenacity. You’re a no-nonsense character which reflects in your fighting style, preferring to just get in there and get the job done.
• Cons: While your country lineage means you’re a simple man with simple pleasures, this can often transfer to the Octagon.
• You know what you’re good and you do it well, yet when you’re up against a city slicker with a bag of tricks, you’re often left dumfounded with little solutions.
• Notable good ol’ country boys: Jon Fitch, Chael Sonnen, Matt Hughes

Top 5 walkout tunes

Wanderlei Silva – Darude, Sandstorm

In the days of Pride, seeing the ‘Axe Murderer’ pump out to techno was a revolutionary experience. Perhaps the only type of music that was as charged as he was, as soon as the lasers beamed across the huge arena you knew some poor pugilist was getting a thrashin’.

BJ Penn – Sudden Rush, The Day the Hawaiians Took Over

Both epic and surprisingly endearing, ‘Baby Jay’ celebrates his Hawaiian heritage with this slow and warm track that build ups and crescendos into a war-like chant. The song provides a perfect affirmation of Penn’s deep home pride while inspiring him to bring his warrior spirit to the Octagon.

Spencer Fisher – Johnny Cash, God’s Gonna Cut You Down

With the brooding ambience of Cash’s gravelly tone and dark chord progressions, this song perfectly envelopes the fear and anxiety a fighter experiences as he walks to the cage. A song about retribution and putting man to the test, the doom-laden lyrics are sure to charge Fisher up into fighting back.

Mayhem Miller – Boyz Noize, lava lava 

Taking Wanderlei’s techno intro one step further at Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers, Miller entered the stage donning a white cape with a posse of scantily clad Asian women, going on to throw more shapes ever seen in a single mixed martial arts event and winning best entrance at the World Mixed Martial Arts Awards.

Anderson Silva – Michael Jackson, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Proving he can move just as well on the dance floor as he can in the cage, Silva’s entrance music at Pride 25 gave him the perfect opportunity to showcase his slick footwork to one of Jacko’s finest floor fillers. With body poppin’ and 360-degree spins galore, the king of the UFC’s middleweight division certainly did the ‘King of Pop’ proud.