Top WWE Star Admits He’s “Never Loved” His Iconic Entrance Music

Randy Orton would prefer WWE to whip up a brand new entrance tune for him before he decides to call time on his incredible career. The multi-time World Champ told WrestleRant that he’s “never loved, loved, loved” his current music; Randy understands why that’ll irk some folks out there.

‘Voices’ is one of the most recognisable entrance themes in WWE history, but it just doesn’t get Orton pumped up before his matches. He loves the guys in Rev Theory who performed the track though, and does know it’s very popular amongst fans.

Randy definitely wants music that “gives [him] goosebumps” before retiring. His current track doesn’t. Like, at all. In fact, Orton was originally supposed to debut new music for his return back at Survivor Series 2023. Eventually, everyone agreed that ‘Voices’ was what fans in attendance wanted to hear.

Remarkably, Randy almost debuted new ring attire too. He even “bought a pair of f*cking kickpads” for the occasion. Come crunch time, the veteran elected to stick with the look fans were more familiar with. “If it ain’t broke, why change it?”.

Maybe he’ll get that new music one day.

Rob Van Dam Comments On Meeting Tony Khan, Using ‘Walk’ By Pantera In AEW

Rob Van Dam made his shocking debut for All Elite Wrestling earlier this week when he confronted FTW Champion, Jack Perry.

On the upcoming episode of the 1 of a Kind Podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam spoke about meeting Tony Khan for the first time earlier this week at AEW Dynamite.

“I had only talked to him on the phone before so last night,” Rob Van Dam said. “I met him and, obviously, he was cool, respectful and he reminded me that he had told me this on the phone a long time ago, that as a fan, he was at the stretcher match of RVD and Sabu in Philadelphia. He said he was there, and he said that he, you know, that he felt like that night, you know, was like a big vehicle moment that catapulted me, you know.

“At the time, it was like my favorite match at the time. I loved it. I remember the match, you know, really well, certain spots of it. But at that time, every match for me was the next one would be my favorite, you know, the next one, especially with Sabu. He was there, and that was a real special night for him as a fan too. So pretty cool.”

When asked about coming out to his ECW entrance theme, “Walk” by Pantera, RVD said that when he found out they would be able to use the song, it put him in a different vibe.

“That was awesome,” Rob Van Dam said. “Yeah, when I found out that he was gonna have the rights ‘Walk,’ it just like put me in a different vibe. You know what I mean? Just knowing the reaction that was going to get and how the fans would be emotionally connected to that, you know, let it play for a few seconds.”

But we almost didn’t hear Pantera on Dynamite as obtaining the rights for the song didn’t manage to come together until the last minute.

“And then it wasn’t until a little while, hour or so, within the first hour when I was at the building when that just changed,” Rob Van Dam revealed. “I was like, ‘What? Wait, how? Is this updated? Because I just yesterday … sweet!’ I was like, ‘That’s awesome.’ So yeah, I read some of the comments on social media for people saying like brought tears to their eyes and stuff like that. It’s pretty cool.”

RVD will challenge Jack Perry for the FTW Championship on the August 9 episode of AEW Dynamite. 

Ricky Starks Used To Hate His AEW Entrance Music

AEW has paid licensing fees for a variety of entrance songs, including “Tarzan Boy” for Jack Perry and “Carry on Wayward Son” for The Elite, but that hasn’t been the case for Ricky Starks’ old theme, “Touch The Sky” by Kanye West. Starks used the song on the indies and it became a big part of his character, but he was given a new track in AEW, and admitted to the “Swerve City Podcast” that he “actually hated the song” the first time he heard it. Starks’ AEW theme was created by Mikey Rukus, and ended up growing on the “Absolute” AEW star, becoming popular with fans as well. However, the first time he heard it was when the fans did, as Starks wasn’t aware of what it would be beforehand, explaining why he had to grow into appreciating it and adding his own personality to the entrance.

“I think Rukus did a great job with it,” Starks said. “But, I grew into liking it a lot and now it’s pretty much a signature for me. Of course with the horns and the ‘Revolution will be televised’ I think it still adds to me as a person, onscreen, offscreen, it all ties in.”

Starks’ character has evolved from what he was doing on the independent scene, which he admitted was “stroke daddy inspired” with the baseball jersey, chain, and bandana. However, fashion still remains a big part of what he does, as evidenced by his various eye-catching looks during Starks’ recent rise up the card in AEW.

AEW Acquires Rights To Iconic Hardy Boyz WWE Entrance Theme

If you were wondering why Jeff Hardy was able to come out to the classic Hardy Boyz WWE entrance theme on last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite, it’s because Tony Khan’s promotion has secured the rights to the track.

Fightful Select reported prior to Dynamite that AEW was trying to license the song. Titled ‘Loaded’ and produced by Zack Tempest, the track was never owned by WWE, though it stands as one of the most enduring themes of the past few decades. Rather, it is stock music that has been used outwith wrestling before, including on Spike TV.

Later, Fightful confirmed that AEW has, indeed, secured the rights to ‘Loaded’. The promotion also acquired the right to use the entire library the song is part of, which includes Crash and Hardcore Holly’s old WWE theme too.

Jeff reunited with brother Matt on last night’s Dynamite, reforming the Hardy Boyz in a long-expected debut that concluded with an emotional embrace in the middle of the ring. The angle preceding this saw Matt kicked out of the Andrade Hardy Family Office by the group’s remaining members.

Hearing a theme so closely associated with WWE on AEW television was a trip.

Jim Johnston On WWE’s New Entrance Themes: “There’s Just No Feeling”

Not for the first time since leaving the promotion four years ago, former WWE music producer Jim Johnston has thrown some less-than-complimentary words at the company’s modern entrance themes.

Johnston, considered by many the greatest theme composer in wrestling history, said the following on Ron Funches’ Gettin’ Better podcast, stating that WWE’s current array of tracks lack feeling:

“It’s all about feeling for me, particularly with music – and there’s just no feeling. It used to be you could be three rooms away and know who’s coming out to the ring. Now, it’s ‘who knows?’, and sort of ‘who cares?’.”

The veteran composer continued, saying WWE had become comfortable with its position while comparing the promotion to a clothing line that has lost its appeal:

“The people in charge have gotten comfortable with where it is. It’s making money, it’s like ‘okay, let’s not screw with it.’ We’ve all seen that happen with a lot of things in our lives, whether it be a clothing line we once loved and now we go back to the store and it just all seems to be tired. There’s nothing cool here anymore. There’s nothing elegant or special, it’s just the same as the store next door.”

Jim made similar comments on WWE’s current themes earlier this year, telling Lucha Libre Online that he wanted to “slap Vince upside the head” for the company’s “bad” music.

Johnston was WWE’s in-house music producer for 32 years until he was let go by the promotion in November 2017. He had been phased out as the company’s chief music creator in favour of CFO$ prior to that, though WWE has since terminated its relationship with that group as well. Production company def rebel now handle the bulk of the company’s themes.

Some of the most iconic wrestling themes in history came from Johnston, including Steve Austin, The Rock, and Vince McMahon’s. The 62-year-old hasn’t been involved in professional wrestling since leaving the market leaders.

Jon Moxley On How He Got “Wild Thing” As His Entrance Theme

In an interview with Cincy 3:60, AEW star Jon Moxley talked about how he came to get X’s “Wild Thing” as his entrance music. Moxley revealed that the original plan was for him to use the song as a one off for his match with Kenny Omega at AEW Revolution, only the rights didn’t come in till later. Once they got the rights, AEW decided that Moxley would continue to use the song.

“So we’re doing this Exploding Barbed Wire match,” Moxley said. “And I was being compared to the innovator of that, who’s called Atsushi Onita, who’s a Japanese wrestler who came out to that (song). A month before Tony (Khan) was like, we’re talking about it and Tony, who is the owner and booker and so forth, he goes ‘should we get ‘Wild Thing’ for that?’ Just for one night for the Exploding Match. And I was like ‘no that’s too derivative. No it’s too much.’ And then a week before I started thinking about it again and I was like ‘well it might be cool for one night. People might get the reference. Just for that one night I was like ‘let’s do it.’ By then it was too late and we couldn’t get the rights for it or whatever.

“But then it came through a couple weeks later, and I was in the ring with Yuji Nagata. And I thought it was the ‘Season of the Witch’ playing. I was like ‘why is Season of the Witch playing right now?’ And after the match, I heard it was like the original, the Troggs ‘Wild Thing.’ I was like ‘oh, they must’ve got ‘Wild Thing’ after all. That’s my music now.’ And they then changed it to the X version, the Major League version. So it kind of just happened by accident. But if the people like it, I like it. So that’s all that matters. I’m into it, it’s cool.”

Moxley was also asked if the intention was always for AEW, now on a hot streak with three consecutive weeks of Dynamite reaching #1 on cable on Wednesday nights, to take the world by storm. The former AEW Champion confirmed everyone hoped for that and talked about how exciting wrestling now was, both due to AEW’s momentum and their working arrangements with other companies.

“That was the hope, otherwise I wouldn’t have come here,” Moxley said. “Coming here was like ‘well this an opportunity to help and really do something and create something and be part of a thing that’s helping wrestling.’ Creating something new, being on a team from the ground floor. I could’ve just waited around and been like ‘let’s see if this thing works out and then maybe see what they’re doing.’ I was like ‘no. If I’m going to be in, I’m in. If I’m going to commit, I’m going to come in at the ground floor and if we fail, we fail. But we’re going to try to succeed. I could feel the momentum, I could just feel the energy from the very first night in at the very first Double or Nothing. It was like, you could feel it man. And 2020 hit everybody hard man. That could’ve killed us with not having TV, but we figured out a way to run TV and everybody kind of pulled together and worked to figure it out. Now that that’s like finally kind of over, that was a long, tumultuous kind of period. And then we had to go against, we’ve got this Wednesday Night War thing going on. So we’re in the trenches, we’ve got no fans, we’ve got a pandemic, we’ve got this other company trying to hurt us. And we came through that smelling like roses.

“Now it’s all positive on the other side. It kind of galvanized everyone together. Now it’s like, the train is rolling man so you better get on now. The wrestling business is changing right now and it’s all for the better. I think it’s going to be picking up new fans along the way. It really feels like anything can happen in pro wrestling right now, as far as like different people from different promotions going back and forth. Whether that be New Japan or Impact or AAA or whatever, it literally feels like anything is possible right now. So it’s cool time to be in wrestling, cool time to be a fan. You can feel that something is going on right now. It’s all very interesting.

Can CM Punk Use ‘Cult Of Personality’ In AEW?

CM Punk should be free to use Living Colour’s ‘Cult of Personality’ as his entrance theme in All Elite Wrestling.

This is according to PWInsider’s Mike Johnson, who reports that even though WWE licensed the track for use as Punk’s music during his final few years in the company, the promotion has no exclusivity on it. Thus, there are no legal barriers to Tony Khan’s promotion paying to use it.

WWE licensed ‘Cult of Personality’ at Punk’s request in 2011. He debuted it after returning to the company that July, following on from famously winning the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank 2011, and used it for the remainder of his run up until he was let go by the company in early 2014.

While AEW is yet to officially confirm anything, Punk is expected to arrive in the promotion imminently. Last week’s Dynamite saw the company go all-in on teasing the former WWE Champion’s debut for the upcoming ‘First Dance’ episode of Rampage in Chicago, IL (Punk’s hometown) on 20 August.

Whether or not Punk will want to use ‘Cult of Personality,’ Killswitch Engage’s ‘This Fire Burns’ (his first WWE theme), AFI’s ‘Miseria Cantare’ (his classic ROH track), or something else entirely in AEW remains to be seen.

Booker T Recalls Meeting Vince McMahon After Hating His New WWE Music

Former 5x, 5x, 5x, 5x, 5x, World Heavyweight Champion and WWE Hall of Famer Booker T recently sat down for an interview on an episode of Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker to discuss Booker T’s A&E documentary, which also had some controversy surrounding it that Booker T recently addressed.

During the interview the WWE Hall of Famer was asked if he thinks the legacy of WCW is misremembered by fans today. Booker T said he does think that WCW is misremembered, but that is also the case with numerous things throughout history. Booker T also had praise for Eric Bischoff, who recently revealed he was moving on from pro wrestling.

“Yeah, I think that they do perhaps,” answered Booker T. “But that [happens] with everything that kind of goes away and is not there anymore, and it’s not something we can actually touch. All the WCW guys pretty much faded away after that time period. But it was an awesome 10-to-12 year run that WCW had, as well as changing the model of the way that the business was run as far as guys getting guaranteed money and stuff like that.

“I remember Eric Bischoff telling me personally, that he wanted professional wrestlers to get paid like football players. He really wanted to put us in the seven figures for mainstream wrestlers. And he pretty much did that in a lot of ways. A lot of guys right now are getting guaranteed money because of WCW.”

While on the topic of his time in WCW, Booker T was asked if he had any input in his entrance music or wrestling gear, both of which largely stood out in the company. Booker T says he did in fact have creative input in his entrance music and tells a funny story about how Harlem Heat got their first set of flashy leather gear.

“The music we had input in,” shared Booker T. “We had a whole list of music that we had to go through, [what we picked] turned out to be the best one. I used to date this girl who was in the entertainment business, [laughs] the adult entertainment business. The lady that used to make her outfits, she was the one who made our first black leather outfits that my brother and I came out in. It totally shocked the wrestling world and took the wrestling world by storm. And those outfits costed us $850, but I’ll tell you it was worth every penny. [Stripper gear] is exactly what it was [laughs]!”

While on the topic of entrance music Booker T recalled having his music changed in order to promote a WWE rap album at the time. Booker T recalled hating the music so much that he met with Vince McMahon to see about getting it changed.

“I remember in the WWE we did a rap album,” recalled Booker T. “And I had one of the, ‘Booker T, Can You Dig It?’ And they made me use that music for about a month, and I hated it. I hated coming out to that rap music, it just wasn’t me. I just didn’t feel [it]. I went to Vince McMahon and said, ‘Vince, I need my old music back’. And because we were promoting the album, he said, ‘Just ride with it a little longer and we’ll get your old music back’. And it was so refreshing getting my old music back.”

Jungle Boy Reveals What He Would Like To Improve On

Days before he challenges Kenny Omega for the AEW Championship, Jungle Boy joined Busted Open Radio to talk about his big match. Host Dave LaGreca wanted to know if entering the main event picture had caught Jungle Boy by surprise.

“Yeah,” Jungle Boy said. “I guess, coming into it, that’s like the dream of what you want, kind of just for it to take off like that. But you know, we’re a little over two years in now, and it feels crazy from the beginning to now. I’m on the main event of Dynamite with Kenny Omega. That’s something a couple of years ago I think would’ve not seemed possible. So it’s really cool. I feel, especially, in the last couple weeks since the fans have been back, things have kind of just gone faster than they were before. So it’s been interesting.”

Jungle Boy also touched upon his entrance music, “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora. After confirming previous details he had given about the song, he went into detail at how Tony Khan had told him he’d get the song and how it helps calms him before matches.

“Tony always said to me ‘I’m going to get you that song one day,’” Jungle Boy recalled. “And I didn’t take it very seriously. I thought that would be cool, but whatever. And I always said ‘if you want to, that would be great. But I’m happy with what we’re doing now.’ And he’d always say I’m going to get it, I’m going to get it. And then, at the beginning of this year, he just had this big smile on his face. And he said ‘I got you the song.’ And I was like ‘no way. That’s crazy.’ I hadn’t heard it in a long time.

“I get so nervous before I go out there. A lot of people are cool and collected and I’m not at all. But now, the second I hear that song come on and from the back I can just hear the roar, kind feel the building shake a bit. It takes a lot of those nerves away. And I got out there and people are having a great time and singing. It makes the whole thing a fun experience, pretty immediately.”

Later Bully Ray asked Jungle Boy what he would like to improve on. While his ultimate goal is to become a better overall performer, there is one skill Jungle Boy knows he’s lacking in.

“I’m not a promo guy at all,” Jungle Boy said. “That’s never been something I’ve been super into, probably because I’m not that great at it and it’s not something I’ve done a lot of. And I can definitely feel that’s kind of a weak point in my game. So I’d like to improve that. Just kind of being a better, well rounded wrestler all together.”

When asked if he had gotten any advice on how to improve with promos, Jungle Boy revealed that he mostly tries to avoid them as much as possible. That said, he did reveal that people have offered him pointers, including one of AEW’s top producers.

“Honestly, every time they ask me to do it, I kind of try to duck and run away and not have to,” Jungle Boy said. “A lot of people have given me advice here and there. Actually our producer, who ends up being the one filming a lot of them, Jess Palombo, has actually helped me a lot. Cause she’s there all day, filming people cutting promos. I think when the time comes to really buckle down and get good at it, there are a lot of people who are good people to help. So that’s good.”

Jon Moxley Gets Classic Song For His New AEW Entrance Theme

All Elite Wrestling gave Jon Moxley a new entrance theme for last night’s Dynamite, as the reigning IWGP United States Champion hit the ring to The Troggs’ Wild Thing for his match with Yuji Nagata.

Moxley had previously used the Violent Idols’ instrumental track, Unscripted Violence, for the duration of his AEW stay. Now, it appears that Tony Khan has scored another licensed song for use in his promotion – though this is yet to be confirmed.

March saw Khan acquire the rights to The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? for Orange Cassidy. The AEW president has also licensed Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy for Jungle Boy, as well as securing Ol’ 55 by Tom Waits for use in Brodie Lee tribute packages.

In wrestling, Wild Thing is best known as the entrance theme of the legendary Atushi Onita. Many a parallel can be drawn between the deathmatch icon and Moxley, particularly after Revolution 2021’s exploding barbed wire bout, from their similar violent swagger to their shared fondness for leather jackets. Entrance music is now another.

Onita appeared briefly on AEW television in the build to Revolution, putting the exploding deathmatch’s threat level over.