Jim Johnston has heard what passes for wrestling entrance music these days, and the man responsible for some of WWE’s most iconic themes is not impressed. In fact, Johnston thinks the problem goes way beyond a few forgettable songs because he believes generic entrance music is helping put a ceiling on how big today’s wrestlers can actually become.
While speaking on Ropes N Riffs, Johnston pulled back the curtain on how he approached creating music during his legendary WWE run. Johnston wasn’t just throwing a cool guitar riff underneath somebody’s entrance and calling it a day, because his entire process revolved around figuring out who that wrestler really was and turning that personality into a soundtrack.
Johnston explained that he usually wasn’t sitting down with the wrestler and asking what was on their Spotify playlist. Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn would normally give him footage, character information and whatever pieces of the puzzle they had, and Johnston would start digging for something underneath the surface that could make the music feel like it belonged to that person and nobody else.
Sometimes that meant picking up on personality traits that had nothing to do with what fans were seeing in the ring. Johnston said a wrestler might come across like a complete lunatic on television while being much quieter or more insecure behind the scenes, and those little details were exactly the kind of things he wanted to find.
“I don’t understand this part of myself, but for some reason, I’m able to take a little bit of input, visual, whatever story things I can get from anybody, uh, very unoccasionally talking to the person before writing it and get an impression uh, of like, wow, he’s, you know, this is a really interesting guy with a with a story or or or just an impression of like there’s something going on with this guy. There’s like whatever it is like he’s he comes out and he’s a crazy man, but backstage or just talking there’s a real insecurity and quietness to him. es and I try to pick up on those things and and that’s where the real story in inspires me. That’s what I love to know.”
Then Johnston turned his attention to modern wrestling, and that’s where the gloves came off. He flat-out called the current state of entrance music “pretty awful” because, in his view, too many themes are just loud collections of drums, effects and guitar without actually telling fans a damn thing about the person walking to the ring.
“It’s a perfect segue to where I think things are now, which I sorry is pretty awful because it’s generic. They’re not scores to the people. They’re they’re not the music’s not saying anything about the character. you could take this theme and just give it to the next guy and it would feel the same when he came out. It’s like it’s big music. It’s exciting. There’s lots of sound effects and big drum loops and uh crazy guitar solos and everything else.”
Johnston’s biggest shot came next, because he doesn’t think this is just a case of older wrestling themes being more memorable. He believes the inability to instantly connect a song with a wrestler is actually hurting the business when it comes to building stars who feel bigger than wrestling itself.
Johnston remembered the days when fans could be standing in the kitchen with the television playing in another room and know exactly who was coming out from the first few seconds of music. Now, he says that kind of instant recognition has disappeared, and he directly tied that problem to the absence of another Steve Austin or The Rock-level breakout star.
“Uh but the the days of being in the kitchen and the TV’s in the living room and being able to know exactly who’s coming out, that’s not happening. And and it’s also I think bad for business because I think that’s why the business is not really creating stars like there there are not new stone colds and new rocks. There there are guys who are popular but but that’s a it’s it’s like a ceiling now. There there’s no one breaking through and jumping into Hollywood in the movies anymore.”
Johnston has been hammering this point for a while now. Ringside News previously covered Johnston blaming mediocre and interchangeable WWE and AEW entrance themes for wrestling’s lack of true megastars, and these latest comments make it crystal clear that he hasn’t backed away from that stance one bit.
There’s also no shortage of current wrestlers who have had issues with their music. Dominik Mysterio and Liv Morgan previously admitted that they hated their WWE entrance themes as well as The Judgment Day’s music, so Johnston certainly isn’t the only person inside or around the business who thinks something has gone wrong in the theme department.
Johnston helped create an era where shattered glass meant Steve Austin before fans even saw his face, and a single gong instantly told everyone The Undertaker was coming. His problem with today’s wrestling music is that too much of it sounds like background noise attached to a wrestler instead of part of the wrestler, and he believes the industry is paying a price for losing that connection.
Do you think Jim Johnston is right that generic entrance themes are helping prevent wrestling from creating another Steve Austin or The Rock-level megastar, or is he putting too much importance on the music? Drop your thoughts in the comments and let us know.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
