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WWF's introduction of music in the 80s


BigBadMick

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I realize it's mostly a financial issue, but on an artistic level, I think wrestling would be better off using real popular music as opposed to stuff made in-house specifically for them. When I hear "Tom Sawyer", I still think of the Von Erichs. I'd like for that to be the desired effect of all entrance music -- you hear the song doing something else unrelated to wrestling and then you think of the wrestler.

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Harley Race, Honky, Demos all had music. Orndorff did too albeit Hogan's. Savage had music as a heel. It WAS less common though

 

Watched WM III to see this (in clips) just now and noticed something. EVERY heel who gets a runway entrance has music except Andre.

 

What are you defining as a "runway entrance"? The Dream Team, Hercules, Bundy & the midgets, Sheik & Volkoff, and Adonis all came out on the cart and none of them had music.

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I realize it's mostly a financial issue, but on an artistic level, I think wrestling would be better off using real popular music as opposed to stuff made in-house specifically for them. When I hear "Tom Sawyer", I still think of the Von Erichs. I'd like for that to be the desired effect of all entrance music -- you hear the song doing something else unrelated to wrestling and then you think of the wrestler.

 

Real music is why CMLL and AAA have had the overall best entrances in the world for the last two and a half decades, with only very few exceptions being better, such as NJPW Tokyo Dome shows and Wrestlemania type shows with large entrance budgets. This is also why ECW had some iconic entrances that got lost when those same wrestlers were in WWF or WCW.

 

A lot of the WWE music sounds generic and blends together. The themes for Rollins, Ambrose or Cesaro aren't much more than slightly modern versions of random WCW Pro wrestler themes.

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I don't know if I've ever heard a specific answer to this, but I think it goes back to Parv's general point (which I've believed for years as well FWIW) that the WWF had a slow gradual evolution from 84 to the end of the decade into what Vince's vision was.

 

The 84 TV is much the same as the 83 TV with different talent is one example of my point. Music for nearly every wrestler is another key but it was not every wrestler. At some point in 1990 they lost (or gave up) the rights to Jive Soul Bro. As a result you rarely if ever see Warlord or Power and Glory coming to the ring, even for a squash match. They are already there and hence don't need music.

 

Actually P&G had music for their earliest matches, but dropped it by Summerslam.

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I'm guessing Race's theme was just generic coronation type music?

 

It was Maurice Ravel's The Great Gate of Kiev (same as what Lawler has used for the last twenty odd years).

 

Interesting side note: a sample appeared on Michael Jackson's 1995 HIStory album (track by the same name) but has always been removed from reissues, including even today on Spotify.

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Never knew Power and Glory had music, nice find. Kind of reminds me of the first theme the Beverly's would use. I wonder if it was just a generic bumper theme for one of their TV shows that got repurposed, they did that quite often back then.

 

And seeing the Rockers there reminded me they actually did use Judas Priest in the WWF for one or two shows, I used to have a recording of it years ago when I used to collect rare themes but that stuff is long gone.

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