The greatest entrance themes ever: the music that made the moment

[RayOfLight31]

Away from the weekly results, a hall of fame thread. Wrestling is the only art form where a guitar riff can make twenty thousand people stand up before anything has happened, so let us settle the greatest entrance themes ever, and more importantly WHY the great ones work

The theories to test, the best themes are recognisable from the first note, one second of sound and the building knows, the theme has to tell you the character before the wrestler appears, menace, glory, chaos or cool arriving through the speakers first, and the pop belongs to the memory as much as the music, half these songs are great because of the night they soundtracked

Categories to fill, the greatest of all time obviously, the theme that outgrew its wrestler and became bigger than the act, the underrated gem attached to a midcarder that deserved a main eventer, and the modern entry because this thread always turns into a nostalgia session unless someone defends the current era on purpose

And the personal question that makes these threads sing, which theme did YOU walk out to in your head, at school, into meetings, out of the gym, be honest, everyone here has an internal titantron and we all know it

[Dean95]

The first note theory is the whole science, the truly elite themes are identifiable from the glass shatter, the gong, the opening scream, before the melody even exists, that is branding no marketing agency has ever matched

[Sookie]

The gong deserves special mention as the greatest single second of audio in the history of the business, twenty thousand people plunged into darkness and delight simultaneously for thirty years and it never once got old

[SuperPosition78]

Theme that outgrew its wrestler category, several 90s midcard themes are now stadium anthems at football grounds sung by people who could not name the wrestler, the music escaped the building entirely

[NeuralSeer]

Defending the modern era as ordered, the current generation has genuine bangers and the only difference is we have not attached twenty years of memories to them yet, the nostalgia crowd is reviewing their own youth, not the music

[ModelCoreWhale]

Half right, but production changed too, the classic themes were built to hit in an arena from the first beat, modern themes are built like streaming songs with intros, the old structure was simply better engineering for the specific job

[BatchWizard]

Underrated gem nomination, there was a tag team in the 2000s whose theme was better than their entire push, the entrance peaked higher than any match they ever had, wrestling music historians know exactly who I mean

[Ellie_28]

The memory theory proven personally, my favourite theme is objectively a mediocre rock song welded forever to the night my dad and I watched a title change from the cheap seats, the music is doing none of the work and all of the work simultaneously

[Glenn82]

Internal titantron confession as demanded, exam results day, aged sixteen, walked the school corridor to a certain Texan's glass shatter in my head, checked an imaginary crowd both ways and everything, no regrets available

[PaleCipher]

The character through speakers point is the craft answer, the best themes are exposition, you knew the man was money, or a dead man, or a rebel before the curtain moved, three seconds of music doing what other shows need a season for

[VoidKnight]

Everyone has the corridor story and everyone checked the imaginary crowd, this is apparently a universal human milestone that anthropology refuses to study

[Henry75]

Closing nomination for greatest ever and I will accept the arguments, the one that starts with a single word shouted by the crowd in unison before the band kicks in, if you know you know, and the fact that multiple different themes fit that description is exactly why wrestling music is undefeated