MMA Walkouts Explained: What Really Happens on the Walk to the Cage

By the Rising Fighter team · Published September 1, 2026 · Viewer's Guide

Everything else on fight night belongs to someone else — the matchmaker, the commission, the referee, the judges. The ninety seconds between the locker-room door and the cage steps are the only part a fighter controls completely: the song, the flag, the pace, the face. Here's how the walk works and what it tells you.

What actually happens during a walkout?

Backstage it's a checklist run by people with radios. A runner counts the corner down so the fighter is sweating and loose at the exact cue; gloves are already signed off by a commission inspector. At the cage steps the cutman applies petroleum jelly to the brow, the inspector does the final check, and the fighter is usually inside pacing for a minute before the opponent appears. Champions walk second — tradition, not rulebook, and a challenger who's waited ninety seconds in the cage has already been told who's in charge.

Who picks the walkout song — and what are the rules?

The fighter, almost always, with a promotion veto for explicit content, length, or rights. And the reason replays sound different: music rights are licensed by use, so a song cleared for the live broadcast often can't go in the archive — it gets dubbed over with library music. If a walkout is legendary, the live broadcast is the only place it truly exists.

Why do fighters walk out with flags — and why were they banned?

The flag is the cheapest, most instantly readable branding in the arena — for many fighters it's the whole story. The UFC removed national flags in 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, then reversed course in October 2023 after the Noche UFC card, flags back for everyone including Russian athletes. The rule now is effectively "allowed, subject to the host" — a fighter who normally carries one and walks empty-handed usually ran into a venue rule, not a choice.

Which walkouts became legendary — and why?

Conor McGregor, UFC 189 (2015): his usual "The Foggy Dew" into "Hypnotize" — except Sinéad O'Connor sang it live above the tunnel. Legendary because it escalated something the audience already knew. Israel Adesanya, UFC 243 (2019): a choreographed Naruto-inspired dance in front of a Melbourne crowd on the scale of sixty thousand, then a second-round knockout of Robert Whittaker. Legendary because nobody had seen it. What they share: both were planned and rehearsed for weeks. The spectacular walkouts that go wrong are the ones tried for the first time on the biggest night.

Does the walkout affect the fight?

Yes — it's the last stage of the warm-up and the first stage of the adrenaline spike, and those pull in opposite directions. The flood a screaming arena produces is followed by a crash fighters call the adrenaline dump: heavy arms two minutes into round one. Some fighters are sharpened by spectacle, others emptied by it, so corners keep the entrance whatever the fighter has practised — and champions walk second because most believe waiting is the better side of the exchange.

What does the walkout tell you as a viewer?

It's the one unguarded moment of a heavily produced evening. Read it like a corner does: nose-breathing beats mouth-breathing at the tunnel; eyes down means routine, crowd-scanning means feeding on the moment; a calm corner in step means a calm room; a slowed walk claims the night, a hurried one wants it over. None of it predicts the result — but once you learn to watch the walk, the first bell stops being the start of the story.