Rock and wrestling. Rock 'n' wrestling. Match made in heaven? Ever since The Fabulous Freebirds used music to help with their ring entrance and thus even cut their own theme song entitled
Bad Street USA, music seems to have been arm in arm with wrestling. When Vince McMahon took over and monopolized wrestling, he used this connection by getting Cyndi Lauper to appear on then WWF shows, giving his sweaty wrestlers the rub. Soon enough, they were on MTV with Lauper and David Wolfe and they used it to set up the original Wrestlemania. And the rest is history.
Way back when, Vince decided that he wanted to put wrestler's themes on vinyl. I believe American Idol's own Simon Cowell was even involved. If it wasn't the original
The Wrestling Album, it was one of the sequels. That album had men like The Junkyard Dog, Mean Gene Okerlund, and the great Nikolai Volkoff singing on it. The next wrestling album was a little bit more musical, but still had the wrestlers singing and included the debut of young Vincent Kennedy McMahon on lead vocals. There were other WWE music CD's, but it wasn't until they released
WWF: The Music Vol. 3 in late 1998 that it took off. That album and the following, creatively titled
WWF: The Music Vol. 4 sold by the bus loads. It was the perfect time for Vince McMahon to go back to the rock and wrestling connection. Most of the themes were written and performed by Jim Johnston who created popular riffs and utilized what was hot in music at the time. He did work on the majority of the songs and they seemed to perfect what each wrestling character was about.
Vince McMahon and company decided to get real life bands to re-work some of their more famous tunes on
WWF Forceable Entry and this new album,
WWE Wreckless Intent is in that same vein. Though many of the theme songs are actual songs by bands now, instead of Johnston created tunes,
Wreckless Intent embodies what McMahon loves. He wants his wrestlers to be the rock stars. He doesn't call them performers. He calls them superstars. And what better way to be cool (like Carlito) than to get popular bands to buy into wrestling and create themes for his wrestlers?
The Good
The one great thing about Randy Orton is his theme song.
Burn The Light by Mercy Drive might be the greatest entrance song going right now. As a full song, it's not as great, but is still a fine song with it's original sounding, cocky baseline, perfect for the brash youngster. Batista's
I Walk Alone is another really strong entrance song. Again, as a full song it gets a tad repetitive, but the energy, especially in the beginning it is inspiring. When I first mentioned this CD to a friend, his first words were, "I can't wait to work out to Batista's song." Those are the first two songs on the album. You must wait for eleven songs to pass before you get back to anything special.
P.O.D. played Rey Mysterio's theme live at Wrestlemania 22.
Booyaka 619 came across great on the show in which Rey Mysterio won the World Title. Soon enough, I was singing alongside my boys. "Booyaka, booyaka, 619. Booyaka, booyaka, Rey Mysterio." There's a little bit of Spanish in the lyrics, but you won't remember anything but the hook. The last song is of course for none other than the boss's son in law, Triple H. He gets Motorhead to record a new song for him that sounds very much like his current song. Rather than it being time to play the game, it's time for the
King of Kings. You will hurt your throat and have to gargle with Epsom salt after singing, "Bow down to the, bow down to the King" along with Lemmy. I'm actually going to sneak Torrie Wilson's theme,
A Girl Like That in here because it's a bit better than the songs that are in the next section. It's a poppy wannabe rock song that seems to channel it's inner
My Sharona.
The Bad
I could be really lazy here and say that everything else deserves to go here. The rest of the eleven songs. But I won't be THAT lazy. Brand New Sin should've just re-recorded The Big Show's old song instead of recording
Crank It Up. That's pretty much what it is, just slowed down with some coarse singing.
Holla by Desiree Jackson absolutely doesn't fit on this album. There's no
Wreckless Intent with this song. It's simply an excuse to get something dancy on the album, but rather than have the sorry Ms. Jackson, their own Lilian Garcia could've done a much better job. Carlito's
Quien Soy Yo (Who I Am) performed by Kaballon is actually a decent attempt at putting something on here that's musically diverse with it's Latin salsa beat, but how on earth does it fit on this album?
Fury Of The Storm is Shadows Fall's attempt at taking Rob Van Dam's memorable theme song and writing a new tune around it. If you could only understand what the lead singer is saying. He screams all the lyrics with angry grunts.
Sombodies Gonna Get It is Mark Henry's new theme recorded by the Oscar winning group, Three 6 Mafia. Oh you didn't know? Your a** better call ... (just kidding). Yes, the same group that performed on the soundtrack to
Hustle And Flow and earned an Oscar is here with your standard bounce and clap rap song about splitting someone's wig and breaking someone's neck. All of the charm that was on their ode to pimps is lost. The lovely Maria receives the song that would've went to Stacy Keibler had she not become a little celebrity of her own and left wrestling.
With Legs Like That by Zebrahead is probably the best little tune of the bad songs, but you've heard this song about 500 times in the last two years. Not very original.
This Fire Burns is actually not even a theme for a wrestler, though Randy Orton did use it once before. It's actually the theme to one of their PPV's,
Judgement Day.
The Celmatic (aka, the ugly)
Hard Hittin' is horrendous. It's The Coach's theme song by a group called Homebwoi (yes, that isn't a typo, it's how they spell their name). It's the most generic, least creative, hip hop song that you'd ever hear. The beat lacks everything that makes hip hop original and the lyrics are general, stereotypical and lazy. You, your mother, and your mother's step cousin could get on the mic and create something more listenable.
Deadly Game by Theory Of A Deadman (no Undertaker doesn't sing lead vocals) is simply the most odd song on this album. It's hard rock driven with all the drums and guitar that you could ever ask for, and then when the lead singer comes on, he tries to actually sing like Patrick Swayze from
She's Like The Wind. Just odd. While that is odd, it's not as odd Silkk The Shocker still being in the music business. Master P's baby brother for some reason records a song called
I'm Comin' and no, this isn't for Val Venis. I never thought Silkk was anything special and he proves me right while rapping about how hard he is and also how many diamonds he has. I wonder where he got to idea to record such a record?
Thankfully, there are four or five listenable tracks on WWE's newest creation. The bad and the
Celmatic definitely outnumber the good, but that's been the case with all of the WWE albums.
If you want to read past renditions of
The Good, The Bad, and The Celmatic I have linked them below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
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