Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Entrances

2. Royce Gracie

It is only fitting that MMA’s first great fighter also be recognized for what amounted to its first epic walkout. “The Gracie Train,” as it became known, represented the all-in-the-family spirit of those early Ultimate Fighting Championship shows. Slowly making his way to the cage in the company of his brothers, cousins and past 80-year-old father, he put Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and its peculiar cultural context on display for the world to see.

Accompanied by the strains of appropriately bombastic music, the lineup of Gracies grew to an impressive 13 for his epic 2000 fight with Kazushi Sakuraba in Pride. There is a strong argument to be made that, given the magnitude of the fight, the enormity of the event and the leisurely feel of the ring entrance, this was the greatest walkout of all-time.

Gracie may not have stuck around the sport for all that long, all things considered, and his career did not end well, but he set a high bar for a particular brand of entrance.

Number 1 » His walkouts have more in common with high-level performance art than with ring entrances as they are commonly understood in MMA. His choreographed routine for his last fight at K-1 “Premium 2006 Dynamite” was an incredible spectacle, and it almost defies description. He was and remains a totally unique character in the history of the sport, and we are worse off for not having had him for longer.