wrestling / Columns
The Contentious Ten 7.04.12: Entrance Themes
Hello and welcome to the Contentious Ten, I am your host David McGregor. This week I am going to look at the best entrance themes in wresting. PLEASE NOTE THAT this will be a primarily WWE based list as for me that’s where most of the great themes came from. There have been decent efforts in other organizations but the WWE, and Jim Johnston, are some of the best at captivating an audience with a simple soundtrack. I am going to be deciding these on how influential they have been, how well they suit the wrestler and personal entertainment.
I am sure that we will disagree on many, all that I ask is that you be respectful when disagreeing, and that you share your top 10. Thank you very much for reading…
MY TOP 10 ENTRANCE THEMES
This is the most recent entry on the list, and it is two of the best songs of the modern era smashed together. I absolutely move Edge and Orton’s theme music, and they are by far the best since the start of the millennium, so when they were mashed together I thought it would be a decent effort. And I was proved right, as this is the best tag team theme in years, and by far the best mash up of themes the WWE has done. I’m still clueless as to why Orton changed his music, this theme was gold and Voices never really matched up to it. Even more so now that it makes no god damn sense for his character, at least Edge knew when to keep something that worked. This was a great theme for two of the best this generation.
This one has a fantastic introduction that instantly gets the crowd going, however the rest of the song is sort of embarrassing when you listen to it. Michaels was at one time considered a sexy boy that ladies would be attracted to, but now he is a balding middle aged man. I mean that it in the nicest way, but it is slightly odd that his theme speaks about how he isn’t a toy boy and how sexy he is. If I were Michaels I would have gotten a new theme as soon as humanely possible, hell when Angle sung his parody it had more compelling lyrics than this one. But due to its popularity and the fact that the beginning is brilliant, it deserves a spot on the list.
This is one of those themes that has lost a lot of its meaning over the years as well, but that doesn’t stop No Chance being one of the absolute greatest themes of all time. It helps that the character of Mr. McMahon is so compelling but this one just fits him so well, more so a decade ago, that everything just works. I remember being the biggest Mr. McMahon fan as a child, yep I was odd, and would be glued to the screen the moment this one started. It was the perfect theme for the evil boss role that McMahon would perfect more than anyone ever thought possible, great music that was amplified by an amazing character.
It was 7 years since we had all heard this theme, or a variation on it, yet when Rock was announced as the guest host of Wrestlemania and his music came blaring out the speakers the entire arena went ape shit. There is literally no other way to describe the reaction this man got last January when he returned, and its strange that his music has managed to be engrained in the fans minds after such a long absence. I guess that is the power of nostalgia, but the music also has such a large part to play in the spectacle of the character. Rock was a larger than life figure and his theme was the definition of electrifying as fans went crazy throughout the world when they heard his voice come roaring out at the beginning. Rock could get the crowd going like no other, well nearly no other but we will get to that later.
The Hitman had one of the greatest entrance themes of all time, it didn’t suit his character at all but my god was it brilliant. This one seemed like it was written with an Ultimate Warrior character in mind, yet Bret Hart was about as far away from that as you could get. He wasn’t the best talker in the world and he was far from the intense character that Warrior was, and still Hart managed to make the theme work for him and looking it back it seems like nothing else could have worked. To see just how great this one was you only have to look at the time on Raw when HBK teased a Bret Hart return in 2005 the place went insane at the opening note. Sure the fact the show was in Canada didn’t detract from it, but it shows just how fondly fans remembered that theme even though WWE hadn’t shown in on a live broadcast in over a decade.
To me there is no more perfect fit for character and them than the Ultimate Warrior, a hot act mixed with a killer soundtrack and it was gold. There are others who have had amazingly fitting themes but most of them aren’t really crowd-pleasing efforts, but Warrior was given one of the absolute best songs to amp up the crowd. I believe if it wasn’t Warrior that was given this theme then some other Hogan-light character would have been given it, whether they would have been as successful is highly debatable. Warrior was the definition of intensity, more so than anyone before or since and that’s why the unstable theme worked. Warrior was powerful and dynamic, forget about his flaws he was going out to one hell of a theme and kicking ass in less than 5 minutes. And they thought the Goldberg gimmick was original.
Most of these cater to the fans as much as possible, but there was nothing intense about Flair’s entrance as it was as flashy and sophisticated as a pro wrestler could get. While the likes or Hogan and Warrior ran down to a belting theme, Flair would strut to the ring with more spectacle than anyone else in the business. What is unique about Flair’s theme song is that it was a very popular composition before Flair used it for his own theme. The theme comes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, which is a near 40 minute composition, but the famous part is the fanfare at the beginning which was used in 2001: Space Odyssey. So the piece was incredibly famous prior to Flair’s use, yet still every time it used anywhere you will get a Wooo comment or chant which is testament to how much Flair epitomized the feeling of the music. One of the best uses of a slow and dramatic piece of music in pro wrestling ever.
To be honest you could put any Undertaker theme in here and it would make the top 5 without any argument, but for me my personal favorite is the one used in 1998 just before he went all satanic and started crucifying people. This one didn’t have any vast emotional meaning like Ain’t No Grave by Johnny Cash did, and it wasn’t as somber as some of his more earlier themes but this one just so damn cool. I know that is the worst reason to place this so high but there is no grand reason here other than it is a brilliant theme for one of the greatest of all time, it just put a whole new dimension on the Undertaker character and moved him away from the dead gravedigger he had been. Around 1997/98 the Undertaker character seemed to become a tad more human and this theme was smack bang in on that point, which I feel done a lot of the work of repositioning the character. It’s an important theme in the history of the Undertaker, even if it is rarely mentioned.
Well if any piece of music ever got an idea across quicker than this one I’d love to see it! Real American pretty much just shouted at the audience that this was an American hero that the fans should cheer for, its pretty over the top and cheesy but for the time it was just right and clearly worked, as Hogan became the biggest thing in professional wrestling ever. Today someone like Hogan probably couldn’t get away with a song like Real American as its just seems like pandering to the audience, but back in the 80’s audiences were more willing to accept it especially when it came from someone as huge as Hogan was at the time. Also it one hell of a catchy song, I’m not even American and I end up singing along as soon as it starts. If anyone asks you to name a professional wrestlers theme song this is the one they will reply with, for that alone it deserves a spot on this list.
While Hogan’s theme was all about eating your vitamins and saying your prayers, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s seemed like it was just about destruction. From the moment the glass smashed everyone knew what was about to go down, Austin was going to arrive and beat the holy hell out of someone. Also Austin’s theme is responsible for one of the biggest pops of all time, when Mankind beat the Rock for the WWF Championship on Raw back in 1999 it was due to Austin’s help and when he arrived the place almost blew apart it was that loud.
This is the importance of a killer opening, without the glass smashing Austin’s music just doesn’t have as much effect but with it the crowd immediately knows what to expect instead of waiting to see who it is. A lot of wrestlers today have pretty horrible music but with that effective opening it could give their character they break they need. Austin would have always been Stone Cold but his music fits his character so well that it amplifies him into another stratosphere. This is for me the greatest theme of all time and literally the soundtrack to an entire wrestling era.
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