I love music. I also love wrestling. With the superbowl of wrestling, Wrestlemania, coming up I figured I should combine the two and do a wrestling themed post here. If you are reading this and are a musician, sample some of these songs and make something awesome.

Ain’t No Grave by Johnny Cash is up first. I always thought that the funeral march was the best entrance that the Undertaker could have. Then he started coming out to this song. Johnny Cash was a badass and this song fits Undertaker’s character perfectly. They took the best entrance in wrestling and made it even better.

Speaking of the Undertaker, his Wrestlemania opponent has a pretty sweet entrance theme himself. Performed by Motorhead, Play The Game signals the arrival of Triple H. It’s also played before Celtics home games. This combines music, wrestling, and basketball. That’s AWWEEESOOMMMMMEEEEEE, to borrow a phrase from the Miz.

Let’s use basketball as a segue. My tag team logging partner for the 2008 NBA Finals, Kenny Murals, said that whenever he heard Hulk Hogan’s Theme his heart would start racing. My friend Tim feels the same way as he just lost an arm wrestling match to a 400 pound man but he is certain he would have won if Real American was playing. The song is that powerful. It got Kenny and I through some really late nights at the NBA and it would have gotten Tim through that arm wrestling match.

Hulk Hogan does have his haters, as evidenced by Be a Man, Macho Man Randy Savage’s diss track. Hogan has yet to release a mixtape in response, though his daughter Brooke has an album that I haven’t heard, so maybe it’s on there.

Ric Flair is not a theme song, it’s a track by rapper Trazz that encourages us to do a dance that is modeled after the patented Nature Boy Strut. Go ahead and strut around, pat your hair with it, lemme see you Ric Flair with it. I feel like this should be way bigger than the Dougie. WOOOOO!!!

With Youtube around, we have been able to witness a number of wedding receptions with wrestling elements. If I ever tie the knot I’m coming out to Shawn Michaels’ entrance music and the lucky lady will be holding a mirror for me like Sherri did in the early HBK days. I’m not budging on that. Also, my sons will be named Daryl the Fourth, Larry Joe Bird Hatfield, and Bret The Hitman Hart Hatfield. Those are the rules, ladies.

Razor Ramon brings us the only instrumental track in this post. This theme is just cool. It’s so cool that I asked them to play it at my job every time I walked in the building. They didn’t. I quit. You wanna be like Razor, you gotta do like Razor, chico.

Chris Jericho was the first Undisputed Champion ever, he’s written two books, he has a band that tours the world, and he is currently on Dancing With the Stars. And people think that wrestlers are just roided out dumb jocks. Martyr No More is a track from Jericho’s band Fozzy’s latest album “Chasing the Grail”.

Jericho isn’t the only singing wrestler. Junkyard Dog released Grab Them Cakes in the 80s and my college radio station had it on vinyl. This was a favorite to play and one show was even named after it.

As we round out this post I think it’s a good time to explain why I love wrestling. It’s simple, wrestling is life. The story telling, while fantastic and unbelievable for the most part,usually gets a moral across. Growing up I always trained, took my vitamins and said my prayers. As I grew older I understood the importance of intelligence, integrity, and intensity. I don’t trust anybody and I know that it doesn’t matter what your name is our what you think. My friend Scott once said that he can list countless life lessons he learned from sports entertainment. I think Hot Chip sums it up best with the line “All I know , I know from watching wrestling” in their song Wrestlers . They use wrestling as an analogy for a difficult relationship and beg their lover not to fight dirty and hit them with a chair. They also sing that everyone knows that Monday night means wrestling, which is very important to tell your significant other in order to make the relationship work.

 

 

BONUS

I can’t do a post about wrestling and music without mentioning the most electrifying musical performance in sports entertainment history. The Rock, who hosts Wrestlemania this year,  performed a Rock Concert for the lucky people of Sacramento right in the middle of the ring.

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