Jim Johnston is offkey about the source of theme songs in pro wrestling
Full disclosure, two things.
I’m an older fellow at this point, and my music collection — digital and physical — combined is stupidly large. We’re talking a 128 GB phone where anything that isn’t dog photos is probably music, and a physical collection that probably is pushing around 500 CDs if you count the burned discs I made years ago of albums I could never find. We’re talking a burned copy of Eminem’s “Infinite” and live recordings of Rage’s “The Battle of Toronto” (quality is AWFUL, by the way), and a solid collection of Canadian hip hop artists no one outside these borders will ever know.
That’s all anchored by an exhaustive library of 1990s alternative, punk and rock music from before hybrid rock-rap was a thing. Although I’ll die on the hill and say both versions of Linkin Park are equally good, and Emily Armstrong’s other band Dead Sara is a hidden gem that everyone needs to at least listen to once. The overarching rambling point here if it weren’t clear is that music is important to me and I listen to a metric ton of it.
The point of a song is to get you to feel something. They become attached to memories, moments in time, the people we share our favourite songs with and in the wrestling sense it’s the music we identify oftentimes with our favourite wrestlers. That opening beat, booming bass line or snarling riff (yes, snarling. Go listen to Alice in Chains’ “Check My Brain”) becomes synonymous with those fixtures in our lives. They become our soundtracks in the same way they become intertwined with who we grew up with or watch weekly today.
The reason why I’m even inundating you with this diatribe right now is something former WWE songmaker Jim Johnston said the other day. So blame him.
I doubt anyone who grew up watching WWE when Johnston was making themes for the company will decry his output. He produced and wrote some legendary themes, ranging from ones for Steve Austin, Undertaker, Chris Jericho, HHH and Vince McMahon’s “No Chance in Hell” that alongside Austin’s became iconic with late ’90s wrestling. When Austin marched to the ring after the glass shattered, we cheered. When McMahon power walked to the ring, we booed. One was the anti-hero, one was the authority and defacto villain. There are countless others to rhyme off.
Over the last several years we’ve seen CFO$ and Def Rebel handle most of the WWE tunes, while their AEW counterpart Mikey Rukus handles most of their music. I’m sure we all have opinions on what is or isn’t good or suitable, but that’s to be expected as we’re talking about something that is very subjective.
The other day Johnston gave an interview where after he was asked if he ever wanted to produce wrestling themes again, he had this to say about original music vs. licensed or commercial tracks that I disagree with:
“There’s nothing more self-defeating, and it almost never works out, than to base a theme on a commercial song. I always thought it was a horrible idea when guys got big enough that they could convince Vince (McMahon) to let them use a commercial track. This is music and pure emotion. If suddenly your entrance theme is a theme where it was playing the first night a guy slept with his girl, his association is sleeping with his girlfriend, not with you. When you come out, you want people to only be thinking of you. That is the only thing in the universe you want them to be feeling. That happens in the case with Undertaker or Stone Cold. People aren’t thinking about other songs or experiences; they are thinking about what Steve Austin is doing tonight or in the moment and excitement. If part of your mind and heart is over here, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that song.’ It’s dumb, I think,” he said. – All Access Entertainment podcast
Johnston argues that our attention as fans shouldn’t be split when a wrestler is walking the aisle, that their presence should be top of mind, not other associations we might have with that song. I tonally agree generally on that point, but I disagree more broadly that people can’t disassociate music from themselves and focus on the moment they’re watching a wrestling entrance. The notion that they can’t serve the same purpose is wrong in my view. I also don’t believe his assessment is that simple and there are plenty of examples within WWE, as well as outside the company with places like AEW and formerly ECW.
There are moments and people where it simply makes sense. Can you imagine CM Punk coming out to anything other than “Cult of Personality”, even if it’s “This Fire Burns” or “Miseria Cantare.” That song is synonymous with him at this point and it fits his character and personality for better and worse. You can say the same for Adam Copeland/Edge with “Metalingus”, or Bryan Danielson and his WWE and AEW themes “Flight of the Valkyries” and “Born for Greatness.” At this point can you imagine Cody Rhodes coming out to anything other than Downstait’s “Kingdom?”
On that same note though, licensed music that you would never hear on a TV broadcast without a hefty sum doled out to the rights holder has been the soundtrack in wrestling arenas going back decades. For example, you wouldn’t necessarily associate this with them at first thought since their theme in WWE was iconic, but anyone who watched AWA, NWA and WCW in the 1980s would tell you that Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” defined their aura and mystique as the biggest tag team attraction. You could say the same for Danielson, who on the indies came out to Europe’s “Final Countdown” and revived it to close out his career in AEW for the biggest moments.
I think back to the needless 20-minute openers for Sandman in ECW with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” on loop, or the aura that was created as Rob Van Dam entered the ECW arena to Pantera’s “Walk,” or Tommy Dreamer with Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box.” Those all hit with me and I associate those as much with the wrestlers as I do my own experiences.
That sentiment is true regardless of arena size, regardless of company. That’s where I keenly disagree with Johnston on the point. Where it fits the wrestler, the character or the moment in time, it doesn’t matter what the song is, only that it makes you feel something as a fan. If it helps you connect with whomever, whenever you see them, is that not the point? If we leave ego aside, which I’d argue much of what Johnston’s statement is based from, the point of a theme is to be the soundtrack of the moment. They’re playing when they walk, strut, gallop, or jump down the aisle, or when they celebrate their career highs.
Whether a piece of music is original or not doesn’t matter to me. I can’t be the only one who has listened to “Enter Sandman” hundreds of times working out, playing games, walking, sitting in a car or riding a bus… or other things Johnston outlined. You could have gone to a Metallica concert and experienced the song and still have a visceral moment of joy during a Sandman entrance as he covers every corner of the arena spilling copious amount of beer everywhere and on everyone.
The core point is identity and what it means to the wrestler, and how you identify with the song when you hear it. Where it comes from doesn’t matter. Music existed before Jim Johnston and will long live past him. But the sense of connection you get from anyone’s music is yours to experience, ours to share and talk about, and through it all be the soundtrack to our wrestling memories.
That’s what wrestling is after a point. What we remember and share, and the stories we’ll tell friends today, tomorrow and deep into the future when you talk about your own “good old days.” We’ll remember the outcomes, sure, but for years to come as present stars leave the limelight and come back for special moments, we’ll know them by their music. Those beats and arrangements are their career soundtracks. It’s why even now we pop when the glass shatters, the static spikes like on an old television, when Flair’s woos fill the arena before the iconic “Also Sprach Zarathustra” or when the opening to “Metalingus” booms over the speakers to hype up the arena.
Those tunes are a mix of original, hybrids or fully licensed. It doesn’t matter how they were created, only that when they hit you care.