Top 7 ECW Theme Songs

No wrestling promotion was more based around its music than Extreme Championship Wrestling. Paul Heyman’s goal with the promotion was to create wrestling’s version of Nirvana. Like Nirvana & other bands like it slapped rock music in the face and made it change direction in the early 90s, Heyman wanted to slap pro wrestling in the face and make it change direction. I’d say he accomplished that. ECW saw a lot of the talent that would shape pro wrestling for the next couple of decades go through its doors. ECW saw a lot of their concepts utilized on larger stages. They had a deal with Vince McMahon, and eventually Vince ended up buying most of the assets of ECW.

This resulted in ECW’s archives being available via the WWE Network. I have re-watched some ECW, but not much. The main reason why? Most of the music ECW used on their shows involves paying people royalties. See, when you’re an underground Northeast indy fed, you really don’t worry about music rights. Mainstream wrestling feds do worry about these things, and this leads to ECW shows on WWE Network/Peacock not really having the same effect they did back in the day. Terry Gordy coming out as a surprise to “Freebird” made ECW fans lose their minds. Not the same effect streaming when he comes out to “Badstreet USA” or some distorted version of “Freebird”. As much as I loved ECW back in the day, I can’t re-watch the shows on the Cock without the original songs being played. It’s just not the same.

Today, we look at seven of the most magnificent ECW theme songs.

7. “Hulka Blues” – Harry Slash & The Slashtones

It was tough to find a proper theme for Sabu. It’s not like the Original Shiek had a theme laying around for ECW to use. Once they came up with something, it was perfect. This song fit Sabu like a glove. Sabu fit ECW like a glove. He was too extreme for any promotion other than ECW to present properly. This song set the mood for the homicidal, genocidal, suicidal, death defying man known the world over as Sabu.

6. “Simon Says” – Drain STH

Simon Diamond had a lot of things going for him. He had a big bodyguard named Dick. He had a girlfriend named Dawn Marie. He also had this awesome theme song establishing his character. He could enter the ring, scratch his chin and act like he was ordering people to do what he wanted. Simon was one of the most hyped indy wrestlers when he came to ECW, so it wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise if he ended up the ECW World Heavyweight Champion at some point.

The poor guy just had worse timing than Justin Credible.

5. “Perfect Strangers” – Deep Purple

This song should be higher on this list simply because it’s an amazing piece of music. The thing keeping it down here: I don’t know how it applies to “The Franchise” Shane Douglas, other than he liked hearing it. The lyrics don’t apply to him in any way. The Franchise character wouldn’t want to remain perfect strangers, he’d want to leave a deep impact in your life. He wasn’t the type of guy to keep distant.

If Shane Douglas himself wants to explain how this song applied to him, I’d listen. It obviously spoke to him, he had knockoffs of it in WCW & TNA. I can’t blame him, it’s an awesome song. I’m just wondering how it applied to “The Franchise” Shane Douglas. Larry probably could have explained it to me if I’d thought to ask.

4. “Awesome Bomb” – Reckless Fortune

I don’t have to wonder how this song applied to Mike Awesome, as it summed him up.

Rising up from a land of the gator
He’s a modern day gladiator
Six-foot-six angry and mean, a living breathing war machine
Made his name in the rising sun
With blood soaked battles that he won
Time and time his hand was raised
As all his victims felt his rage

Awesome’s what they say
All his victims feel the pain
Dropped with an Awesome Bomb
You go down and you never come up

Amazing. How WCW & WWE both managed to screw up his presentation and not use this song for him, I’ll never know. Mike Awesome was a force of nature that this song was perfect for.

3. “Man in the Box” – Alice in Chains

Tommy Dreamer was the ultimate Man in the Box. He was buried in his stuff, which he created by being mean to Raven in summer camp. He couldn’t beat Raven for years. His one ECW Heavyweight Championship run lasted about twenty minutes or so. His ECW Tag Team Championship run happened because Raven answered the call of his song and saved him from the Dudley Boyz.

He came into ECW wearing suspenders, but became the ultimate working class hero. He earned the Philadelphia fans’ respect by being the Man in the Box. Getting beat by Sandman, Raven and everybody else that came along. Cactus Jack wanted him to go to WCW with Uncle Eric, but that could never happen. He represented ECW until the end.

2. “Natural Born Killaz” – Dr. Dre & Ice Cube

I know that my boy Corny is still pissed that the Gangstas went to ECW too early. ECW was the perfect place for New Jack & Mustafa Saed. They were hardcore crazyass mofos that fit too well in the extreme environment. They fit even better after somebody (probably Paul E.) came up with the idea to play this song during their matches. Typically the song would cut off once a wrestler entered the ring. With the Gangstas, the song just kept on going while they laid waste to people.

Eventually Mustafa would peace out, and New Jack would keep coming out to this theme and keep destroying fools. It was perfect, and I can’t imagine watching New Jack matches without this song playing during them.

Honorable Mention: “This Is Extreme” – Harry Slash & The Slashtones

Was there a better piece of theme music to start a show? The first WCW Monday Nitro theme was nice, as was the WWF Raw Is War theme, but I’m not sure a song summed up a promotion better than this theme did.

Honorable Mention: “November Rain” – Guns n’ Roses

Every year, once November came around, we could count on a video package summing up the events leading up to ECW’s November to Remember show at the ECW Arena with “November Rain” as the theme. Then we could count on a video package recapping the events from November to Remember with “November Rain” as the theme.

I really don’t want to re-watch too many ECW shows and find out what WWE replaced this song with. One of those songs that hits a little too hard.

1. “Enter Sandman” – Metallica

Can you imagine the Hardcore Icon without this theme? Imagine the Sandman wandering around arenas & chugging beers without this song playing. It’s kind of wild that the Sandman had that name before he came out to “Enter Sandman”. He was a surfer at that point. I’m not sure why he was a surfer, but somebody came up with the idea to let James Fullington be James Fullington. A Philly guy drinking beers and smoking cigarettes whilst heading to the ring. Opinons can vary on his workrate, but he was pretty much the perfect character for ECW.

The best ECW Sandman entrances rank among the best entrances of all time, and they didn’t have the budget of other best entrances of all time. ECW fans got unglued while the Sandman wandered among them chugging beers, giving out beers, smoking cigarettes and whatever else he might have been doing. Today’s wrestling feds would probably frown upon these things, but it was ECW.

Thanks for reading! Throw me a holler at @stevecook84 with suggestions or concerns.