Music Sound

Music in professional wrestling

Music in professional wrestling serves a variety of purposes.

The most common uses of music is that of the entrance theme, a song or piece of instrumental music which plays as a performer approaches the ring. After a match, the entrance theme of the victor will normally be played as they exit the ring. Entrance themes are used to alert the audience to the immediate arrival of a wrestler, and to increase anticipation.

Entrance themes are often tailored to the character of the wrestler they are written or selected for. For example, Jacob and Eli Blu (The Blu Brothers) had an entrance theme which resembled a piece of Blues music. The Undertaker has often used entrance themes which resemble a dirge. In practice, modern day entrance themes are normally rock or rap music, as these genres of music are popular with the professional wrestling key demographics.

Due to licensing costs, entrance themes are often composed by the promotion for which the wrestlers perform in order to avoid having to pay royalties. A promotion might also purchase music from production libraries, which is considered to be cheaper than the royalties of commercial music. However, small promotions with television deals are not obliged to pay royalties, and so may use popular songs for their wrestlers. Due to less restrictive copyright laws in Mexico, Lucha Libre promotions use mostly popular songs. As well, ECW used popular music in order to promote a hip, edgy, counter-culture image, despite the greater expense involved.

The history of entrance themes is not clear, but Gorgeous George is often cited as being the first wrestler to be accompanied to the ring by music. Sgt. Slaughter also claims to have introduced the idea to Vince McMahon, Sr. of playing the Marines' Hymn prior to his entrance at a Madison Square Garden show in the 1970s. However, the practice did not become widespread until the 1980s, when the Fabulous Freebirds, Hulk Hogan and various World Class Championship Wrestling employees began using rock music for entrance themes.

Music is also used as a promotional tool, played during advertisements and video packages.

External links

• Wrestling Music Facts

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Music Sound, v. 2.0, by MultiMedia

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.