Jericho mentions that theme music first made an appearance in professional wrestling at the Dallas Sportatorium. Austin can recall the Fabulous Freebirds and the Von Erichs making their entrance to the ring with classic songs such as Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” playing in the background, and the audience would go absolutely insane.
When Austin eventually made his in-ring debut at the Sportatorium he recorded one of his favourite songs at the time and had it played over the loudspeakers as he made his way to the ring. When he finished his match and made his way to the backstage area he encountered the promoter who was furious, noting that only established talents were allowed to have entrance music.
Many years later Austin was working as The Ringmaster in WWE. When his character started to transition to Stone Cold, the old Ringmaster theme didn’t really fit. He had a conversation with Jim Johnston at the time and brought Johnston a tape of Rage Against The Machine’s “Bulls on Parade”. He has no idea how Johnston came up with the other details such as the glass breaking and the siren, but those details made a huge difference in the end. Austin notes that while he might have inspired the music with his suggestion, Johnston struck gold with his final version.
Jericho mentions that he’s had the same theme music since debuting in WWE. At one point he got Zack Wylde to record a modern version of it but Vince McMahon hated it. At another point Jericho brought McMahon an Avenged Sevenfold song but McMahon hated that as well. McMahon told Jericho that his theme music is evergreen, and Jericho agreed with that point.
On the other hand, Jericho admits that it was somewhat liberating to make his entrance to a different song in NJPW recently. He actually used one of Fozzy’s songs, “Judas” for one of those entrances.
