35 Great Rock and Wrestling Moments
Wrestling and rock 'n' roll are a tag team made in spandex-clad heaven -- and if any of you jabronis dare to disagree, we've got 35 examples strong enough to send you on a one-way trip to Suplex City.
1. Kiss Once Had Their Own Pro Wrestling Character
In 1999, WCW introduced the Demon, a Kiss-endorsed wrestling character who wore Gene Simmons' stage makeup. The idea didn't catch on well enough to warrant the original plans of having a character for each member of the band, but it remains one of the more distinct stories in rock and wrestling history.
2. Motorhead / HHH: Game Recognizes Game
Motorhead's Lemmy wrote not one, not two, but three different theme songs for one of modern-day wrestling's best "love to hate him" heels, HHH. The band even played "The Game" live as Triple H made his WrestleMania 21 entrance.
3. Cyndi Lauper Helps Bring Wrestling to the Mainstream
There's no overstating how important Cyndi Lauper was to pro wrestling's mid-'80s mainstream breakthrough. Her storylines were crucial components in the lead-up to the first WrestleMania, and she helped bolster the reputation and legacy of the league's women wrestlers. In fact, it's a crime that she's not already in the WWE Hall of Fame.
4. Ronda Rousey Shares Joan Jett's 'Bad Reputation'
When one of MMA's most dominating and popular superstars made her long rumored WWE debut earlier this year, there was very little question which song she'd use on her march to the ring.
5. Alice Cooper Slithers Into WrestleMania III
"Everything about that was great," Alice Cooper says of his experience accompanying Jake "The Snake" Roberts in front of 93,000 fans at Wrestlemania III -- which culminated with Cooper using a live snake as a weapon. "Wrestling was showbiz," he said. "These guys were bigger than life. ... I respected it a hundred times more after being backstage."
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd Help the Freebirds Take Flight
The Fabulous Freebirds, one of the most decorated tag teams / factions in wrestling history, took their name from Lynyrd Skynyrd's most famous song, and also shared the group's proud love of southern culture.
6a. 'Freebird Road'
Inspired by "Brickyard Road," Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant's tribute to his departed brother Ronnie, Freebirds star Michael PS Hayes recorded his own musical memorial to his longtime wrestling partner Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy. "For some reason, that particular time I was listening to the song, I started to notice the parallels between what the song was saying about Ronnie and how I felt about Terry,” Hayes told WWE.com. “When I got home, I told my wife about the idea for the song and knowing I sometimes don’t follow through with them she finally said, ‘Why don’t you shut up and just do it?’"
7. The Sandman Gets a Big Metallica Boost
How's this for good luck? On some special day about two years into his pro wrestling career, James "The Sandman" Fullington woke up to learn that Metallica's brand new breakthrough single was called "Enter Sandman." Oh, and by the way, its dramatic opening made it absolutely perfect for use as ring-entrance music. He wisely took full advantage.
8. Rick Derringer Helps the Hulkster Raise the Flag
When wrestling's ultimate babyface needed the perfect flag-waving theme song, he turned to Rick Derringer -- and if the video is to be believed, the Hulkster even helped out on guitar.
9. Hulk Hogan's Standing Next to a Mountain ...
When forever good guy Hulk Hogan turned into super cool bad guy "Hollywood" Hogan, his entrance music changed into something more sinister: Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)."
10. The Police's Sting May Not Be the World's Coolest Sting
One is a world renowned musician and yoga enthusiast, the other is a baseball bat-wielding vigilante with eerie face paint who likes to hide in the rafters of hockey arenas. You be the judge.
11. Chris Jericho - The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla
Y2J is the one-man embodiment of rock and wrestling -- a multiple-times-over world champion who also fronts his own successful rock band, Fozzy. The band started as a cover act with a terrific backstory: They had been trapped in Japan for 20 years as the result of a bad record deal, forced to watch other acts get famous using their demos, which they were now reclaiming. They soon switched to a more serious image and all original material, and continue to grow more successful each year.
12. Welcome to Chris Colt's Nightmare
You can't hear it in this clip, but Chris Colt was one of the first wrestlers to use rock music as his entrance music -- in this case, Alice Cooper's "Welcome to My Nightmare." As you can see, his eye makeup and general demeanor also seem to be heavily influenced by the theatrical rock pioneer.
13. The Road Warriors Meet Black Sabbath
The legendary and legitimately scary Road Warriors employed some of the best entrance music in wrestling history, striking justified fear in their opponents by blasting Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man' on their way to do battle.
14. Rob Van Dam Walks With Pantera
There's probably hundreds of wrestlers across the world who have used Pantera as their entrance music. But nobody makes it work quite as well as Mr. Monday Night.
15. Marilyn Manson Makes 'SmackDown' Beautiful Again
Since his name, wardrobe and personality are all perfectly suited for pro wrestling, it was probably inevitable that one of Marilyn Manson's classic songs became the official theme for WWE SmackDown from 2001 to 2003.
16. Ted Nugent Helps the Von Erichs Lock in a 'Stranglehold'
When you're grooving on the hypnotic bass line and all that amazing guitar playing, it can be easy to forget how violent the imagery is in Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold." In fact, as the famous Von Erich family stable realized, about the only place it makes sense ... is in a wrestling ring.
17. Billy Corgan: Wrestling Promotion Owner
After starting his own Chicago-based Resistance Pro Wrestling promotion, and serving a brief stint as Senior Producer of Creative and Talent Development for TNA, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan bought the rights to the legendary National Wrestling Alliance in 2017. After saying he's seen the mistakes made by other companies trying to carve a space for themselves in a WWE-dominated industry, Corgan plans to take a "slow and steady wins the race" approach.
18. Husker Du's Bob Mould: Wrestling Scriptwriter
After two decades of breaking new musical ground with Husker Du and Sugar and as a solo act, Bob Mould briefly took a job as a scriptwriter for the WCW. ”When they found out I’d been on the road for 20 years, living pretty hard and fast, the wrestlers realized my life was a lot like theirs,” he told Entertainment Weekly. ”The testosterone, the athleticism ... It really is like a good rock show, isn’t it?”
19. Balls Mahoney Makes a Not-Shocking Choice of Entrance Music
If you've got the stones to call yourself Balls Mahoney, you're not going to walk down the ramp to anything less than AC/DC's entendre-laden 1976 gem "Big Balls."
20. Motley Crue's 'Bodyguard' Becomes a Champion
In 1998, the WWF bravely handed over 12 uninterrupted minutes of airtime to Motley Crue, who in turn invited out the popular D-Generation X stable for a charming "Suck It" chant. The segment also marked the debut of the late Andrew “Test” Martin, who portrayed their bodyguard and eventually went on to win multiple championship titles.
21. ZZ Top Get Bad and Nationwide as WWE Hosts
That Little Ol' Band from Texas just happen to be big wrestling fans. When they're not on tour, they can regularly be seen in the front row enjoying the shows, and on July 20, 2009, they even had the honor to guest host an edition of Monday Night Raw. "One of our favorite things to do, besides playing loud rock 'n' roll," Billy Gibbons explained, is "watching some wild and raucous shenanigans in the ring."
23. Ozzy Osbourne - Prince of Darkness ... and Wrestling
The Prince of Darkness has made multiple appearances for the WWE, appearing at WrestleMania II, as a guest host on Monday Night Raw and even performing on SmackDown. Too bad he's never had a match -- but then again, if the guy is crazy enough to bite the head off a bird, would you want to step in the ring with him? And how is Sharon Osbourne not a wrestling manager yet?
24. Give the Briscoe Brothers Back Their Bullets
Longtime Ring of Honor mainstays the Briscoe Brothers' antics look even better when Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Back My Bullets" provides the soundtrack for their in-ring chaos.
25. Abdullah the Butcher's Gonna Chop You Up
When he wasn’t carving people up with a fork, Abdullah the Butcher enjoyed relaxing to Pink Floyd. His wrestling theme during his time in Japan was their largely instrumental (and quite disturbing) "One of These Days."
26. Rob Zombie Gets the Drop on Edge
Former WWE wrestler and noted metalhead Edge logically chose Rob Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy)" for his awesome entrance music. But when Zombie later turned up as guest host on an episode of Monday Night Raw, the two verbally sparred, and Zombie banned the high-flying heel from using his music.
27. Shane Douglas Remembers Deep Purple's Name
Given that his nickname was “The Franchise," it makes good sense that ECW's Shane Douglas used a song from one of rock's most enduring institutions, Deep Purple, as his entrance music.
28. Metallica Help Sting 'Seek and Destroy'
Whatever happened to namesake loyalty? There's plenty of Police songs Sting could have used as his entrance music: "Wrapped Around Your Finger," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," "Roxa..." You know what? It was probably smart of him to just go with classic Metallica.
29. Kid Rock Helps Undertaker Awaken His Inner 'American Badass'
When the Undertaker ditched his "Dead Man" gimmick for a motorcycle and bandanna, his old graveyard music just didn't match. Luckily, Kid Rock was happy to help the new "American Bad Ass" kick off his ass-kickings on a suitable note.
30. Stacy Kiebler's Got 'Legs'
In terms of character development, Stacey Kiebler was never allowed to expand much past the lyrics of ZZ Top's 1983 smash "Legs." Heck, she couldn't even get the Texas trio (or more likely, their publishing company) to let her use their version of the song. So once again it was Kid Rock to the rescue ...
31. Goldberg + Megadeth = Crush Brothers for Life
When Goldberg was plotting his return to the ring after a break from filming a Universal Soldier movie, he knew he needed backup. Enter Megadeth.
32. 'Land of a 1000 Dances'
Words fail us.
33. The Extremely Short-Lived Tag Team of Phil Collins and Randy 'The Viper' Orton
According to the dirt sheets, the duo wrestled only once, for the dark match of a non-televised house show, scoring a hard-fought victory over Batista and Jon Anderson.
34. Metallica's Surprisingly Large Number of Wrestling Dopplegangers
35. Nita Strauss Plays Shinsuke Nakamura’s Theme at WrestleMania 34
Alice Cooper guitarist and solo performer Nita Strauss added extra flash to the already dazzling ring entrance of the "king of strong style" at 2018's Wrestlemania. A few months later, she teamed up with Lizzy Hale to provide the opening for the first ever all-female Pay-Per-View event, Evolution.