Jessica-Rose Clark had one of the biggest stars in the history of professional wrestling tuning in for her latest UFC 276 bout against Julija Stoliarenko.
Clark turned heads in February when she promised during an appearance on The MMA Hour to use “Sexy Boy,” the infamous theme song of WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, as her walkout song whenever she landed on her first UFC pay-per-view after competing exclusively on UFC Fight Night events for the first seven bouts of her octagon career. As it turned out, that promise came to fruition in July when Clark was booked in a bantamweight bout against Stoliarenko at UFC 276 — much to the delight of the 57-year-old WWE legend.
“Heck, I sat there and watched it,” Michaels said recently on The MMA Hour. “I watched it and it’s like, oh my goodness, she comes out — and then, of course, just like ‘HBK’ [‘The Heartbreak Kid’] she gets tapped out. But it was still awesome.”
Clark’s nickname is “Heartbreaker,” which closely tied it to one of Michaels’ most famous nicknames “The Heartbreak Kid,” hence the connection between the two.
Unfortunately, Clark’s night at UFC 276 likely peaked with her walkout — she lost just 42 seconds into her match against Stoliarenko after suffering a dislocated elbow from an armbar submission. The loss was Clark’s second in a row and dropped her overall record in the UFC to 4-4. She has been sidelined ever since and is currently working toward a return.
But even if Clark’s night didn’t go the way she hoped, Michaels still came away from UFC 276 both impressed and deeply honored by the tribute.
“It was awesome, because look, they do it to The Undertaker’s [theme song at UFC 276 with Israel Adesanya], he’s got cool music. A lot of people have had other performers do that [to their music]. Not me,” Michaels said. “My song, it’s snappy, it’s cool, everybody loves it, but it isn’t really that machismo song. And so, to have a fighter come out to my music and go, like, ‘OK, they get it,’ it’s everything.
“I don’t know a dude in the world that doesn’t love my music, it’s a toe-tapper and it’s a snappy tune, but it’s one of those things like, ‘Yeah, but I can’t come out to that before a fight.’ You know what I mean? So again, to have somebody do that and be proud of it and enjoy it, and understand it and appreciate how cool that music is — that’s why I’ve never changed it over the years. It’s absolutely one of the greatest songs, and so it’s very cool when it lives on passed you and transitions into other sports.”
