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Music plays a massive part in the world of professional wrestling. The first example is the entrance song, which the viewers and audience members usually hear before that wrestler actually appears.
In addition, it can be argued that music and wrestling are similar art forms: both follow patterns; both involve collaborators creating a live performance; in a live setting, both play off the energy of the audience; both often work towards a final dramatic crescendo; and to involve yourself in either one, you need to be willing to humiliate yourself. It’s no wonder that music producer Rick Rubin has called wrestling “American Opera.”
On January 14th, AEW (All Elite Wrestling) will tape its programs, Dynamite and Collision, at the Arizona Financial Theatre. Given this, it seems like a fitting time to explore the crossovers between the wrestling and music worlds. There’s a rich history of musicians tackling this subject — amongst them are Kimya Dawson’s “Captain Lou,” Semler’s “Chyna,” Killer Mike’s “Ric Flair,” Mega Ran’s album “Wrestling is Real, People are Fake,” and The Mountain Goats’ album “Beat the Champ.” But who better to sing songs about this violent vaudeville than the actual practitioners?
A few months back, I wrote a New Times article about Hulk Hogan’s foray into music. With AEW coming to town, it seems like a good time to explore these five examples of other wrestlers-turned-maestros.
1. The WWF Wrestlers
‘Land of a Thousand Dances’
The rock ‘n’ wrestling connection is a period in the 1980s marked by collaborations between the WWF and the music industry. Cyndi Lauper was a major player in this era — the audience took her feud with Roddy Piper so seriously, his family had to live in seclusion. It all got to the point where The Wrestling Album just had to happen. The Rick Derringer-produced record was a compilation of songs performed by the who’s who of that WWF era, and the opening track was a cover of the 1960s classic “Land of a Thousand Dances.” The music video includes Meat Loaf on the drums, a live pig, and Paul Orndorff kissing his muscles the entire time. The wrestlers are clapping along and having a good time until Roddy Piper decides he’s had enough and starts a riot.
2. The WWF Wrestlers
‘If You Only Knew‘
The public must’ve been hungry for more serenading from the WWF, and so it was that Piledriver: The Wrestling Album 2 was born in 1987. A good portion of the tracks would also serve as entrance songs for the performers, but the stand-out was the album’s closer, “If You Only Knew.” The WWF Wrestlers promoted the album and this song by singing it on “The 37th Annual Slammy Awards.” (Why it was called the 37th one when it was actually the second one is anyone’s guess.) They returned to the formula of everyone in their universe coming together to belt out an anthem, with various performers taking turns singing verse solos. It’s obviously inspired by “We Are the World,” except the music is fused with Huey Lewis-style spunk, and the lyrics are about committing violence. The wrestlers themselves remained largely civil throughout the performance, despite the fact that the bodies in that room contained more combined cocaine than all of Colombia.
3. The Undertaker
‘The Man in Black’
It’s impossible to understate how much of music in 1993 was infused with New Jack Swing. Since the WWF business was not at its best during that time, they must’ve figured that putting out a New Jack Swing album would turn things around. They employed a British production team that most notably included Simon Cowell, and they released Wrestlemania: The Album. The formula for most of the songs was having the verses consist of the wrestlers saying the cool shit they usually say, then having other singers belt out a chorus. It’s hard to pick a top song out of the bunch, but The Undertaker’s track “The Man in Black” is at least the most bizarre. Not only was there an undead wrestler who received all of his power from an urn and who once had a match with a clone of himself, but he also performed the ’90s dance party equivalent of “Monster Mash.”
4. Macho Man
‘Be a Man‘
Scripted wrestling feuds have often been born out of absolute hatred between two people, the most famous example of which is Macho Man Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan. It was this rivalry that inspired Macho Man to record “Be a Man” in 2003, the title track off his 2003-sounding rap album. 50 Cent once said of Be a Man, “If you don’t got it, you don’t know what music is.” In the song, Savage takes shots at Hogan’s telephone commercials, his dressing as a ballerina in Mr. Nanny, his bad acting, his loss to The Rock at Wrestlemania 18, and how he was apparently scared of Savage. It’s the professional wrestling equivalent of 2Pac’s “Hit Em Up.”
John Cena
‘The Time is Now’
In the early 2000s, a young John Cena had yet to rise to the top of the wrestling world. Naturally, he first got attention when he adopted a rapper persona. The story goes that some WWE bigwigs overheard Cena having a rap battle with a co-worker at the back of a tour bus, and they thought this should happen on live television. Thus was born “The Doctor of Thuganomics,” a man who would taunt his foes by rhyming at them. This went so well that he released the album “You Can’t See Me,” which debuted at number 15 on the Billboard charts. The opening track, “The Time is Now,” ended up being his entrance music right up to his retirement last month.
