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Fight Songs Pt. 1: The Best of Boxing/MMA Ring Entrance Songs

One of the more fascinating components of boxing and MMA is the way that fighters prepare themselves mentally to compete.  Entering the ring alone to fight requires the sort of courage and focus that competitors in the "stick and ball sports" can only dream of.  Individual fighters have diverse methods of getting "in the zone" immediately before a fight--sometimes you'll see them shadow boxing with a hooting and hollering entourage around them.  Other fighters will engage in quiet meditation or prayer.  UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell is often seen walking around the bowels of the arena listening to his iPod before a fight.  Some fighters are animated and talkative in pre-fight interviews, while others are reserved and focused.  Obviously these prefight rituals are a very personal and important part of the preparation process and there's definitely not a "right" or "wrong" approval.

This prefight emotional and psychological preparation moves from the realm of the private to the public during the ring entrance.  More specifically, a fighter's choice of ring entrance music is a fascinating glimpse into his mindset heading into the ring and, in some cases, reveals the deeper recesses of his personality.  Sometimes fighters enter the ring to nondescript musical accompaniment--in the UFC, there is a predominance of generic hip hop entrance songs or dreadful "nu-metal".  For many Mexican boxers, the mariachi band is the default choice for their ring walk soundtrack.  Still, many ring entrances are particularly memorable for their musical component--good, bad, or just downright bizarre. We'll start our series on fighter ring entrance music with a look at the best of the bunch:

THE GOOD:

The best choices for fighter ring entrance songs are unique, evocative, and appropriate for the fighter or occasion.  They avoid the usual cliches and serve as a powerful subtext to the fight itself similar to the way a good director uses music to create or enhance the mood in a particular scene:

Fighter/Fight:  Bernard Hopkins, vs. Oscar De La Hoya 9/18/04
The Song:  "My Way" by Frank Sinatra

Born into poverty in Philadelphia's Raymond Rosen housing projects, through a childhood and adolescence of crime and gang activity culminating in a 18 year prison sentence before his 18th birthday, Bernard Hopkins definitely could have been just another victim of ghetto life.  Yet Hopkins decided that his destiny was not as a convict--during his incarceration he earned his high school diploma, converted to Islam and seriously began to devote himself to boxing.  Through the force of his own will and the discipline afforded by "the sweet science", Hopkins won the national middleweight penitentiary boxing championship three times before his parole in 1988.  He immediately began a professional career, but it was no "Cinderella story" as he lost by majority decision to Clinton Holmes in his debut fight.  Typically a loss for a fighter in his first professional bout doesn't bode well for his longterm career prospects.  Hopkins persevered, and 16 months and 5 fewer pounds later he resume his career as a middleweight.

Clinton Holmes would fight four more times before hanging up his gloves with a 3-1-1 record.  Hopkins would lose only one fight in the next fifteen years (to Roy Jones, Jr. at the very peak of his talent) on his way to becoming one of the greatest middleweight champions in history.  His reign was punctuated by a TKO domination of Felix Trinidad in what was supposed to be a "changing of the guard" in the middleweight division.  With this victory over Trinidad, Hopkins became the first undisputed middleweight champion since Marvin Hagler in 1987.  He came to be known by the nickname "The Executioner" but it never really fit his personality.  Certainly he was all business in the ring, but outside of it he became one of the sports most compelling figures and captivating interviews.

On September 18, 2004 Bernard Hopkins entered the MGM Grand Garden to fight Oscar De La Hoya in what was easily the most financially lucrative fight of his career.  There were few, if any, who doubted his hall of fame credentials by that point but he made his own emphatic case as he KO'd boxing's reigning box office champ with a perfectly placed shot to the liver in the 9th round.  In just over twenty years Hopkins had come from a teen-aged thug on his way to prison to a multi-millionaire world champion. Some might say that this is evidence that "dreams can come true", but in the case of Hopkins "dreams" had nothing to do with it.  He earned it all with his character, willpower, resilience, toughness and heart.

That night he entered the arena without his trademark "executioner's mask" to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra's "My Way".  Paul Anka, who penned the lyrics that Sinatra made famous, obviously didn't have Hopkins in mind when he wrote the song but the words perfectly provide the narrative to Hopkins' amazing life: "there were times, I'm sure you knew/When I bit off more than I could chew/But through it all, when there was doubt/I ate it up and spit it out/I faced it all and I stood tall/And did it my way."

Fighter/Fight: Lennox Lewis, vs. Mike Tyson 6/8/2002
The song:  "Crazy Baldheads" by Bob Marley

With the benefit of hindsight, its hard to believe that after two one-sided losses to Evander Holyfield (including the infamous "ear biting" incident) and over a decade removed from his last significant victory over a quality fighter many in the general public still considered Mike Tyson the baddest man on the planet.  This fight certainly wasn't a classic in the ring, but it was definitely one of the more unusual spectacles in boxing's colorful history.  There's simply too much bizarre subtext to this fight to adequately cover it here--from the press conference melee where Tyson bit Lewis on the leg, to the unusual venue of Memphis, TN after many other states refused to sanction the fight, to Tyson's maniacal ranting in prefight interviews, to the phalanx of security guards that lined the ring until the bell rung the event was essentially a freak show. 

Lennox Lewis was seeking a degree of vindication himself--his career had been defined as much by his inexplicable lack of focus and resulting losses as it had by his 39 wins and status as undisputed world heavyweight champion.  He had done much to erase the memory of a 2nd round KO loss to Oliver McCall in 1994 only to suffer another shocking KO loss, this time dropping his heavyweight title to Hasim Rahman in South Africa.  As the story goes, he had been to preoccupied with filming his scenes in the remake of "Oceans 11" and hobnobing with the Hollywood elite to take training seriously.  Despite the fact that he destroyed Rahman by KO in the rematch to regain his belts, there were plenty of questions about his heart, toughness and focus.  The conventional wisdom among the Tyson myopics was that if he had been obliterated by the power of Rahman he certainly couldn't withstand the onslaught of the presumptive "baddest man on the planet".

The three ring circus continued on fight night--again, too much to give it justice here but a degree of drama was created by Tyson's indication that he might not even show up for the fight.  At the appointed time, however, Tyson made his way to the ring to the aggressive sound of "What's My Name" by DMX.  Even during his walk to the ring it was evident that the psychotic monster who'd had threatened to "eat" Lennox's children (that he doesn't have, incidentally) and to "stomp on their testicles" had been transformed into a less fearsome persona who looked a little unsure of himself and even somewhat scared. 

Lewis, conversely, looked supremely confident and focused--almost serene--as he slowly bopped toward the ring in time to Bob Marley's "Crazy Baldheads".  The contrasts--fighters and songs--couldn't be more pronounced:  the bald, heavily tattooed Tyson and his angry rap bravado on one hand, Lewis' calm demeanor and pinned up dreadlocks with his rhythmic reggae beats on the other.  Reggae music is something of a dichotomy, with its political and socially conscious lyrics belied by mellow tropical beats and danceable rhythms.  Lewis at his best presented a similar duality--beneath the dreadlocks and worldly, refined public persona was a highly skilled and surprisingly tough fighter in a physically imposing 6'5" frame.

After a fairly even first round Lewis fought a brilliant tactical fight the rest of the way.  Under the tutelage of trainer Emmanuel Steward--who throughout his career has demonstrated his ability to help tall fighters like Thomas Hearns and Wladimir Klitchiko use their height as a weapon--Lewis leveraged his 7" height advantage and his mind boggling 13" reach advantage to perfection.  Before long he was unloading at will on Tyson,  his face a melange of bruises, swells and cuts.  By the midway point of the fight Lewis was essentially toying with his foe, seemingly mocking his once fearsome persona (Manny Steward took him to task for this in an obscenity laced tirade between rounds).  Lewis finally ended his onslaught for good via a 8th round KO.

Lewis had his vindication and, surprisingly, in defeat so did Tyson to some extent.  The concern heading into the fight was that if it started to go badly for him that he'd react like he did in the second Holyfield bout.  Instead, he took a hellacious amount of punishment with toughness and courage.  Furthermore, he was gracious in defeat--almost to a fault with his post fight show of affection toward Lewis and anyone else around him bordering on the bizarre.

OTHER RING ENTRANCE MUSIC SUPERLATIVES:

You have to be a serious badass to get away with pink boxing gloves and fur trimmed or zebra print trunks.  Or else you'd have to be "pound for pound" the best boxer on the planet, namely Floyd Mayweather, Jr.  The self proclaimed "Pretty Boy" has such insane skills that he could wear a dress to the ring.  For his fight against Diego Corrales, Mayweather entered the ring to the mellow sounds of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed".  Of course that was a couple of his own MC's preceded him into the arena rapping his praises and running down his opponent for good measure..... For his fight against Tim Sylvia at UFC 65 Jeff Monson--one of the more intelligent fighters you'll find in the sport and an outspoken Anarchist--entered the arena to "Imagine" by John Lennon.  A great song, of course, but one that provided a very elegant and subtle expression of Monson's political beliefs.  Against a backdrop of the aforementioned generic hip hop and "nu metal" entrance songs (not to mention Sylvia's dreadful choice of "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West) it was all the more poignant.  Other cool MMA entrance songs:  UFC's Spencer Fisher, entering the cage at UFC 64 to Johnny Cash's version of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" from the American V: A Hundred Highways CD.  Randy Couture used the Jimi Hendrix "Star Spangled Banner" at UFC 54.  Going back to UFC 36, Josh Barnett gets points for pure cool for "Name of the Game" by the Crystal Method.  And as we've discussed at length on The Prophet Blog, Mirko Cro Cop for firing what could be the "shot heard 'round the MMA world" as he made his UFC debut to the PRIDE theme song.

PRO WRESTLING PROPS:

Finally, some quick props to pro wrestling who, it could be argued, pioneered the concept of ring entrance music.  Back in 1979, the Fabulous Freebirds--Jimmy Garvin, Buddy Roberts and the late, great Terry Gordy--originally used the Lynard Skynard song of the same name as their entrance music.  They also pioneered a *bad* trend when they recorded their own entrance music, "BadStreet USA".  Before Vince McMahon turned them into cartoon characters during their WWF run the Road Warriors were the baddest tag team in the sport.  And you can't get much badder than their entrance music, Black Sabbath's metal anthem "Iron Man".  Gordy also gets an award for best Japanese theme music--while teaming with Steve "Dr. Death" Williams in All Japan Pro Wrestling (their team was called the "Miracle Violence Combination") they'd enter the ring to "War Machine" by KISS.

NEXT:  In Part 2 of our examination of ring entrance music we'll take a dive to the bottom of the barrel in search of the worst. Read it here!

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