Why do we watch wrestling again? Is it for the action? Is it for the eye candy? Or maybe it's to see some heel cash in a briefcase to some of the most badass music played in an arena (outside of concerts of course).
WWE
The SmackDown theme from 2009 to 2011, "Let it Roll" by Divide the Day. It even has a veiled (if likely unintentional) Take That at TNA:
With the exception of the less than stellar "If You Rock Like Me", Smackdown has had a very good number of great theme songs. From the simplistic original techno theme "Everybody On The Ground", famous for its incomprehensible lyrics, to the return of Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People" (a previous Raw theme), the aggressively ruthless production piece "I Want It All"(V2, V1 instrumental, then V1. V2 Extended here.) during McMahon/Heyman eras and Drowning Pool's "Rise Up".
There's something about Stone Cold Steve Austin's theme that just plain screams, "You're about to get your ass kicked, and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it!"
It's the abrupt glass breaking at the beginning. There's just nothing sweeter than watching Rock/Mankind/whoever getting curb stomped by whoever when suddenly you hear basically somebody flinging a chair through a window as Stone Cold runs in to save the day. Really, what came after the glass could almost anything (and sometimes was). It was so effective, WWE starting adding abrupt opening noises to most of their big stars (the car crash for Mick Foley, Rock's louder "IF YOU SMEEEEELLLLLL...", Triple H has "Time to play the game!" followed by Lemmy'sEvil Laugh, The Big Show's "WEEEEEEEEEEELL..." the explosion for Kane) but Stone Cold's was always the one that best said "Oh, you are fucked now."
In the same vein, the version performed by Disturbed ("Glass Shatters") starting in 2001, is considered by many to be superior to the original variant of Austin's theme. One writer commented that you could give the song to Funaki, and he'd become a main-eventer overnight. It was just that awesome.
There are people that like Steve Austin's original dark and creepy theme from when he started in the WWF in 1996.
His run as the more true to real life Bikertaker had a pair of crowning musics of awesome too. Sure, they werent tolling bells..but you cant really beat heavy metal and motorcycles.
Unfortunately, it was recently revealed that "WWE '12" will use "Graveyard Symphony." Still that's what the custom music option is for, so you can give Stone Cold's theme to Funaki, or y'know, Ain't No Grave to Taker.
Mankind's original theme was dark and tragic, but soothing in a way. And the remix of it was rather catchy.
Triple H always seems to have awesome music, especially that by Motörhead, whether it's "The Game", "King of Kings", or the theme of his stable, Evolution, "Line in the Sand". Being the best friend of a heavy metal god has its perks.
How awesome is this one? Barack Obama used it for his first public speech after finally revealing his birth certificate, a not so subtle Take That at the most insane of the "birthers" and their supporters.
Ever since his injury (and return), people on YouTube have been giving him Alter Bridge's Coming Home as his "new" theme. It's suprisingly fitting for his character, and it's a shame he never got to actually use it.
Randy Orton's current theme, "Voices" by Rev Theory, is so awesome that nobody really cared when it didn't fit his character at all. It's even more awesome now that it does.
Contrary to popular belief, Rev Theory did not perform the song "Voices". It was composed by Jim Johnston and Rich Luzzi from the band provided vocals. However, nobody else from the band was involved and therefore only Luzzi was credited on the song.
Bret "The Hitman" Hart's Hart Attack deserves mentioning. Like SCSA's, it's one of those few beats that's so distinctive that you know it roughly a quarter of a second after it starts playing.
The remixed version made for The Hart Dynasty (and eventually Natalya alone) is pretty damn slick, too.
Whenever I hear this song, I think about graduating college.
Shawn Michaels' theme. Even after all this time, it's still one of the most recognizable and beloved themes in all of wrestling...even if Shawn himself admitted that his singing is atrocious
"Eat your heart out, girls! Hands off the merchandise!"
And of course, there's the truly epic "White" theme he used for Wrestlemania XXV even if it does lead to some Mood Whiplash when "Sexy Boy" kicks in.
Taking it in a much different direction, Hillbilly Jim's theme is appropriately toe-tappin' fun.
If the pure awesome released when the WWF's odd "Countdown to the Millennium" campaign ended in this could be captured and bottled, it would solve world hunger. Or something. What I'm saying is that it was pretty awesome. Subsequentremixes, as well as a cover by Sevendust, only up the awesomeness.
For his video package at [WrestleMania] XVIII, the production crew played Nas and Puffy's "Hate Me Now." It fit The Miz's character like a glove and was, in fact, pretty awesome.
Just Look @ Me. It's a nice break from all the hard rock.
Usually theme mashups for tag teams made up of two singles joined to together have mixed results. But when you gets Maylene and the Sons of Disaster to re-record it into a nice little medley, it sounds so much better.
The second try at the JeriShow (Jericho/Big Show) theme worked much better, and definitely belongs here. It was appropriately titled Crank the Walls Down
WWE Divas as of late tend to not be as lucky in the music department, and a couple of themes in recent years have actually been recycled from one Diva to another. But a few notable exceptions include Melina, which was originally MNM's theme, Natalya, and because it's So Bad, It's Good, Jillian.
In a contrast to the rock/rap themes usually heard at WWE pay-per-view events these days, Night of Champions 2010 went for an awesome orchestral theme by Two Steps From Hell.
It's so good Daniel Bryan now uses it as a theme song.
Interesting thing about Cult of Personality. WWE just happened to have the rights for that song purchased from back when they used it for Stone Cold Steve Austin's Hall of Fame induction, and that song just happened to be the one Punk used during the "Summer of Punk" back at his ROH days.
Even more awesome is how it made it into WWE '12 despite only debuting in July.
"Black Or White", used by Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel for a short time after parting from the Corre. It was a nice JHV of Skillet's "Awake and Alive."
The theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the "Dawn" section of Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra." If I have to tell you which wrestler used that song, then you wouldn't be reading this page anyway.
Goldberg's theme, "Invasion" — i.e. the most awesome piece of stock music ever. When they get Megadeth to do a new theme for a guy, and it's generally considered a step down from a cheap bit of production music... well, you know that cheap bit of production music is something special.
WWE would try and replicate Goldberg's theme when he came into the company (instead of buying the rights to the original theme). They failed miserably.
Raven's theme, which is what happens when you put Suspiciously Similar Song versions of Nirvana's "Come As You Are" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "That Smell" into a blender. Along with copious amounts of awesome, of course.
Alex Wright's 2nd theme, as acknowledged by RD Reynolds. Not as ironic as many of the above examples, but by God, I want to go crazy with Das Wunderkind right now.
The song, sadly, belonged to the WWF (now WWE) who hold the copyright on it, despite the song supposedly being written by Jimmy Hart and as we all know, was performed by Derringer. Jimmy Hart helped write American Made for Hogan when he made the jump to WCW since they needed something to fit Hogan's then still pristine 'hero' image. It actually worked pretty well, all things considered. It was actually a reversal of fates for Hogan and Flair. When Flair had jumped to the WWF, he had to use a knock-off rendition of his classic theme. When Hogan made his way to WCW, he couldn't use Real American, and so he and Hart created what was essentially its Spiritual Successor.
"Huka Blues", the theme of "the Suicidal, Homicidal, Genocidal, Death-Defying" Sabu.
"Natural Born Killaz" by Dr. Dre & Ice Cube, the theme for New Jack. So awesome that the song would play in its entirety DURING New Jack's matches. The gunshot sound was ECW's equivalent to glass shattering for Stone Cold Steve Austin: it was a cue for the crowd to go nuts.
Just to point out a bit of the obvious: Notice how long the WWE section is here? That's because WWE's music director, Jim Johnston, is the Crowning Music Man.
The theme song of Winter (formerly WWE's Katie Lea Burchill) is quite possibly the best theme song in the entire Knockout division.
Frankly, any time that Dale Oliver is given cart blanche and doesn't have to try and do a Suspiciously Similar Song version of a wrestler's previous theme, he can be pretty impressive.
Gail Kim 's new theme since returning in 2011 as a dual champion Alpha Bitch heel knockout from hell, "Puppet on a String". The "DAH DAH DAH! DAH DAH DAH!" guitar crush combined with the ominous string accompaniment just says "You're about to be epically trounced." to any opponent, and considering her long title reign, that's usually the case.
Other
AFI's Miseria Cantare, CM Punk's Ring of Honor theme. Say what you will about ROHbots, there's nothing like having them smack the barricades in unison to the beat of the opening drum fill.
Grand Sword, the theme of Pro Wrestling NOAH's Kenta Kobashi. If Kamina was a professional wrestler, this would be his theme.
His Blazin' theme is pretty epic in its own right. But nothing beats Grand Sword. I know I'm not the only one who hears it and chants "KO-BA-SHI!" in time to the music.
The Fabulous Freebirds used Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" for its entrance music during their NWA era.
And when the promoters no longer wanted to keep paying for the rights, Michael Hayes then promptly went and recorded the equally awesome Badstreet U.S.A. as a replacement theme.
He ain't no wrestler, but Vitali Klitschko won 3 World Heavyweight Boxing Titles. He refused this piece Rammstein wrote for him as an entry song because he felt it was too hard. In order to settle on that one.
I always pick my teeth with the nearest billiard cue
So imagine what I could do to you...
Back on the NWA, when they started out, the Road Warriors used Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" as their theme, and never failed to blow the roof off the arena when they did. Even after the promoter decided to stop paying for the rights, they used a generic clone called "We Are Iron Man" that was probably close enough that Ozzy could have sued over it.
The video game WWF Attitude included, as one of its stock themes, a title called "Crimson Grin". Let's put it this way. Every kid with a wrestling game with a CAW mode has made a bloodthirsty demonic heel to be Kane turned Up to Eleven... and in Attitude, it's a safe bet to say most of them used Crimson Grin as their theme. Actually, for an otherwise mediocre game, Attitude had a lot of great generic themes, although they tend to be hard to find even on Youtube...
Kaientai's theme in Michinoku Pro, "Entre Dos Tierras" by Heroes Del Silencio. It may be in Spanish, which would seem to make it an odd fit for Japanese wrestling, but Awesome is the universal language.
