As many of you know, I attended NXT\nTakeover: Phoenix and the Royal Rumble this year. The Royal Rumble is one of my\nfavorite pay-per-views and one of the best parts is trying to guess who\u2019s\ncoming out once the timer counts down. It was absolutely amazing to see\neveryone jump out of their seats whenever certain theme songs played. Roman Reigns,\nKevin Owens, and Matt Hardy returned this week and just the first opening measures\nof their theme music were enough to elicit an electric crowd response. We talk\na lot about how movesets, character work, and mic skills are integral to a\nwrestler\u2019s success, but rarely do we talk about how music can play an important\nrole as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good entrance music becomes synonymous\nwith the wrestler. When you hear it, you know who\u2019s coming out. It plays when\nthey are victorious, blaring through the arena as they celebrate. The music can\nalso be nods of respect to a wrestler\u2019s culture, personal beliefs, or family.\nIt can truly elevate a match or promo, especially if the performer is returning\nto the ring after an extended absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some wrestlers\u2019 music encourages audience\nparticipation as a way to hype them up for the upcoming match. Two examples of\nthis are Fandango and the War Raiders. Fandango\u2019s catchy tune had audiences\naround the world singing and dancing along while the War Raiders\u2019 theme starts\nthe infectious \u201cWar\u201d chants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Entrance music has to be able to grow and\nchange with the performer as well. Some wrestlers do have pretty much the same\ntheme for years, but you can hear how even those have changed over the years if\nyou listen closely. Sometimes the song changes completely, such as Randy Orton\nswitching from \u201cBurn in My Light\u201d to \u201cVoices\u201d. This symbolized the shift from the\nyoung upstart Legend Killer to his Apex Predator character. Seth Rollins added\nthe \u201cBurn it down\u201d intro to his music upon becoming the Kingslayer after defeating\nTriple H at WrestleMania 33. In a more subtle approach, since Johnny Gargano\nhas slowly turned to the dark side, his theme \u201cRebel Heart\u201d has had some tweaks\nto it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The goal of entrance music is to precede\nthe wrestler. It\u2019s to create a crowd response before a single move is\nperformed. The best themes achieve this and then some, working their way into\nour daily lives as ringtones and alarms. They become the insidious tunes stuck\nin our heads until we hum them constantly. In some cases, they take us back to\nour childhoods. Personally, hearing the Hardy Boyz theme instantly transports\nme back to my early days watching wrestling. I hear the theme and I lose it,\neven a decade and a half later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Down the road, after the wrestler has hung\nup their boots, maybe we hear it again for a surprise appearance or a Hall of\nFame induction. And we\u2019ll re-live their glory days and all the time we invested\ninto their career as fans. That\u2019s the power of good entrance music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
-Wynter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As many of you know, I attended NXT Takeover: Phoenix and the Royal Rumble this year. The Royal Rumble is one of my favorite pay-per-views and one of the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-31n","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/hardys-1.jpg?fit=723%2C405&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11620,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions\/11620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}