One of the best aspects of pro wrestling is the pageantry; the presentation; the pomp and circumstance. Sure, wrestlers become legends in the ring, but a wrestler’s theme song fuses with the wrestler and becomes part of their very identity. What would Stone Cold be without the glass shattering? If John Cena’s theme song wasn’t such a meme-worthy earworm, would we actually be able to see him? Is the Undertaker anything without his drawn out march to the ring, heralded by a gong and a funeral dirge?
There have been countless classic wrestling themes throughout the decades, so we’ve decided to try to decide once and for all which one is the greatest of all time. To help determine this, we put our heads together and produced a staggering 128-theme bracket, seeded totally randomly, and will put them in head-to-head combat until a winner is decided.
That’s where you come in: themes will win or lose based entirely on fan voting. At the end of this article is a Google Form with the first block of matchups — choose your winners and help decide which themes will move onto the next round. You can also vote on Twitter @AIPTwrestling — keep an eye on our feed for tweets containing polls. We’ll continue until there is only one theme song standing.
Without further ado, check out the full bracket below (it’s huge, so you may want to open the image in another tab and expand to full size), and take a look at today’s first-round matchups! If you need a refresher on the themes, we have embedded YouTube links after the Google Form.
Kenny Omega (NJPW) vs. The Shield
Rhea Ripley vs. Jon Moxley (AEW)
Guerrillas of Destiny vs. Raven (ECW)
Dean Ambrose vs. Grado
Vince McMahon vs. Triple H (My Time)
Kazuchika Okada vs. Bayley (Current)
WALTER/Imperium vs. Razor Ramon
Jinder Mahal vs. Seth Rollins (NXT)
Enzo Amore vs. Kota Ibushi (Golden Star)
Asuka vs. Keith Lee (NXT)
Matt Hardy (V1) vs. Curtis Axel (Reborn)
Ted DiBiase Sr. vs. Stone Cold (Classic)
TJP (Playing With Power) vs. Ric Flair
Undisputed Era vs. Eric Bischoff
Hulk Hogan (Real American) vs. The Rockers
Kenny Omega (AEW) vs. Paige
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