Forget the eggs, forget the bunny, forget all the flowers, spring time is about the big-fight feel that only Wrestlemania can provide. Just as Easter is meant to celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and literal hell, Wrestlemania is here to give us the catharsis of watching our heroes of justice take down the forces of evil, except for V, VI, definitely IX, 2000, X-7 in a roundabout way, 22, definitely 23, most definitely XXVII, XXVIII, and 29 (Yeah that’s right; we think both The Rock and John Cena suck), 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, and 39.
See, Wrestlemania has a bit of a complicated relationship with its own narrative, almost as complicated as its relationship with its own numbering system. Just as complicated though, is their relationship with the songs that underscore that big fight feel. There is a reason Super Bowls need an epic half-time show, because it gives the whole struggle an unoffical soundtrack. Some of these songs are insepparable from the fights that they played off, and others are better left forgotten. We say that about both the songs, and the matches.
So before we judge the in-ring fisticuffs, let’s take a long as the bangers and duds people around the ring. This is so nostalgic. It’s taken me back to when I used to write for WhatCulture.
1 – Easy Lover
Wrestlamania 1 got a lot wrong. The first time is never perfect, but did they ever pick a perfect song. That synth, straight out of the 80s, for one of the most 80s events of all time, the epic pauses, marking this as a truly momentous occasion. In many ways, the first Wrestlemania can be seen as WWE’s moon-landing, and they picked just the song to take them into the space age.
10/10
2 – What The Has Come To by Jim Johnston
Hey, it’s the first time Jim Johnston is on this list! While he’s no Harry Gregson Williams, or Hans Zimmer, he is the closest that wrestling has to that. Admittedly though, much like the show his song scores, his work could be a lot better. Frankly, it loses points just because the expectation of improvement is there. They should have either stayed at the same level or gotten better, but instead, Wrestlemania 2 took a step back in just about every possible area.
4/10
3 – Who’s Zoomin Who by Aretha Franklin
Look, I get it, it’s Detroit, and a more cavernous building like the Silverdome might be befitting a quieter song, especially as daylight still creeps into the dome at the start of the show, but this really ain’t it. An event with the technical mastery of Savage v Steamboat and the epic clash of Andre v Hogan needs an O Fortuna type of song, not something that could be chopped and screwed into a vaporwave banger.
4/10
4 – Wrestlemania IV Theme by Jim Johnston
This is where Jim starts cooking. Yeah it’s a little stock-sounding, but it’s perfect for this type of event. The faster pace is in keeping with the tighter confines of Boardwalk Hall, as well as the one night tournament to crown a new WWF champion, which turns just about every match into a sprint. Finally, fans once again have a song that feels like Wrestlemania.
7/10
5 – The Wrestlemania V Theme by Jim Johnston
It’s very late 80s/early 90s, but distinctly not wrestling. For an industry that sometimes refers to itself as Sports-Entertainment, this is definitely more on the entertainment side of the spectrum. It chases the trend, but ultimately is pretty much insepparable from any late-night talk show theme of that era.
5/10
6-8 Grand Spectacle by Jim Johnston
Johnston cooked with this one. This is the first time a song gets reused for another Wrestlemania. Hell, it gets used for three straight, and could have stayed for even longer had Hogan’s passing of the torch actually worked as intended. The guitar gives it this tough edge while those horns sound off like something you’d hear as a Roman gladiator makes his way into the collesium. The only issue is that this was clearly meant to establish a new brand identity for Wrestlemania as they had the Ultimate Warrior lead them back to the promised land, when really this song just scored the dead-cat-bounce of Hulkamania in America.
9/10
9-14 Wrestlemania (Pump It Up Instrumental)
It’s cornier than Iowa at the peak of harvest season, and has more cheese than a Packers playoff game, but I cannot bring myself to hate it. That early 90s pop-rap instrumental is just so whimsical and captures the fanfare a big event like Mania. The bridges also provide perfect backing tracks for commentators to run down what the night’s events are going to be. For 5 straight years, this was wrestling’s Auld Lang Syne. In a period where the show was hit or miss depending on the year, the one consistent thing, was that this song would play us in.
8/10
15 – Rage by Jim Johnston
Okay, I get it. The WWE needed something that sounded more attitude for Wrestlemania XV, the first 100% attitude era Mania, but this just sounds like the worst type of butt-rock. It’s as if you told an AI to come up with a song based on the word “attitude” and just went with whatever it spat out first. For a song called “Rage” you’d think it have more of an emotional ressonance, but it doesn’t do anything to get the people going. It’d be better off with a title like “disgruntled” or “a bit frustrated.”
6/10
2000 – California by Jim Johnston
Jim Johnston’s last time orchestrating a main theme for the Grandaddy of ‘Em All was certainly a weird one, but I get it. The story goes that they wanted to get California Love by Pac and Dre, because they were in Anaheim, and as I’ve been told, that’s basically Los Angeles. For one reason or another, they couldn’t do it, so, like a parent who doesn’t want to get McDonald’s, they made food at home. We have a guy who sounds uncomfortably like Tupac rapping about a lot of things that people hate about California like poverty and plastic surgery, but ultimately the instrumental still slaps. It’s okay, but nothing to seek out. Despite frequent returns to the Golden State, WWE never brought this song back. They did however reuse the instrumental for Rodney Mack and Theodore Long’s theme, and that’s actually a banger.
6/10
X-SEVEN – My Way By Limp Bizkit
You. Don’t. Beat. This. From this moment, Mania would use only licensed music. Finally splurging on the hits that fans actually wanted to hear. The attitude era found its sound for this one perfect night, a brash rap-rockin rejection of authority, in pursuit of the ultimate goal. Fred Durst’s emphatic “YEAH!” sends crowds into a frenzy to this day. Even when he performs this song today, fans queue it up with the iconic video package that led into The Rock and Stone Cold’s epic 2nd clash at Mania. The song might not work for any Manias before or after, but it doesn’t matter because it fit X-SEVEN perfectly. It goes beyond even being about Wrestlemania, this song, and this show captured the cultural moment of pre-9/11 2001. It’s peak.
11/10
X8 – Tear Away And Saliva by Drowning Pool
If X-SEVEN is a party, X8 is that same party at 2:30 AM. Yes people are having fun, but I can’t call much of it good, and I kinda have a headache too. The lyrics and the guitar are not helping, and while it does capture the feeling of Wrestlemania X8, the whole vibe of this show is uncomfortable. It has an air of an act that’s been doing the same thing for too long. I get that X8 has its fans. Drowning Pool also has their fans. I just won’t be one.
6/10
19 – Crack Addict by Limp Bizkit
Anyone that says Limp Bizkit was a one-hit-wonder or some type of flavor of the month clearly has no appreciation for life. The Bizkit and the Fed proved out that they can reach for those same peaks they got a hold of with X-SEVEN, with a sound that is more condensed, less dramatic, leaner, meaner, and no less badass. The people that eulogize X-SEVEN and My Way always make it seem like no show or song can even come close to its quality, but dammit Wrestlemania XIX and Crack Addict are in the same echelon. It makes for a great theme for what the Ruthless Agression era was all about, that being everything that happened inside the ropes, from the first bell to the last.
10/10
20 – Step Up by Drowning Pool
Now this is more like it. This song blasting in the World’s Most Famous Arena set a perfect tone for a continuation of Ruthless Agression era greatness. The song is paced as well as an HBK match while also being low on any of the mellowdrama and theatrics. It’s as blunt as the pain people feel when they’re in the ankle lock. This is the type of song you hear from a band that makes you wish it was their hit. While people will say Bodies is the best work from Drowning Pool, Step Up is a triumph in its own right, something that has the swagger of a champion, just as WWE spent a year standing on solid ground, having finally figured out who the knew stars of their new era would be. This is not something for a king that rests on his laurels. This is Genghis Khan looking for some more territory to take over.
9/10
21 – Big Time by Soundtrack of Our Lives
There’s that epic minute long intro that rides out as the pyros die down, and the sweeping crowd shots are taken in. Then there’s that opening line. “Welcom to the future.” While not as agressively hardrock as the past 4 entries, veering just a bit more in the pop direction, this actually fit the whole aesthetic of the show perfectly. Wrestlemania Goes Hollywood, and the show is main evented by Peacemaker (John Cena) and Drax The Destroyer (Batista) respectively. With both of those men winning their brand’s top titles on the same night, this felt like a showcase for what WWE’s future would look like going forward. Apart from that, the two biggest bad guys of the upcoming era were also crowned, with Edge getting a hold of the Money In The Bank, a contract which would give him a free title shot whenever he wanted, and Randy Orton making a show of himself as he tried taking down The Undertaker, who had gone the last 12 Mania appearences without taking a loss. It was also the first PPV I ever bought, so there’s a nostalgia to it. Problem is, fitting as the song is, it’s just kinda mid.
7/10
22 – Big Time by Peter Gabriel
I geuinely don’t get this one. First off, it’s weird having Big Time come literally right after Big Time. Also for Wrestlemania being “Big Time” this year, why is it in a tiny arena outside of Chicago? It also just didn’t fit the vibe of pro-wrestling. This is a song that Patrick Bateman would lecture me about before trying to take my head off with an ax. At its core, a good Wrestlemania theme should make me feel like I’m either going to fight, or going to see a fight, not like I’m riding a limousine to a Dave and Busters.
5/10
23 – Ladies and Gentlemen by Saliva
For a band that had done as for WWE as Saliva had, a spot on the Wrestlemania soundtrack was long overdue. Thankfully, Saliva let the Fed use their best song ever. It encompassed everything that Mania is supposed to be, a grandiose spectacle of violence and catharsis. 20 years after their show in the Silverdome, WWE entered Ford Field all grown up, and stepping out of a Mustang, promising to take the ladies and gentlemen of Detroit on one hell of a joy-ride.
10/10
24 – Light It Up by Rev Theory
It’s another song that does what every Wrestlemania song is supposed to do. It generates enough energy in that stadium to briefly unseat Orlando’s DinseyWorld as the Happiest Place on Earth. This was the first Mania in a while to take place entirely in the outdoors, with a packed Citrus Bowl watching as the sun set and the action picked up. With matches like Money In The Bank, Flair’s retirement, and Edge vs Undertaker, the crowd was well assured that as the sky got darker and darker that WWE would light up the night.
25 – Ezee Does It by The Firm
In a show that’s meant to be some type of throwback, or acknowledgement of Wrestlemania’s storied past, WWE goes with a band that’s doing their best AC/DC impersonation. This is where the whole federation begins to faulter in their presentation of Wrestlemania, as well as the actual matches. While you can’t actually make the argument that anything is explicitly “bad” something definitely is missing. This was actually the point where I was losing faith in WWE and wrestling as a whole. Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit had died in unfortunate circumstances, and Jeff Hardy’s title win made the whole industry feel like it was just spinning its wheels, going through the cycle of giving Cena the belt, then taking it away again, only for him to overcome the odds. Things are about to get worse.
7/10
26 – I Made It by Kevin Rudolph
I want to throw up. The cash-money productions, Rudolph’s overly autotuned lyrics, and Birdman’s phoned-in verse, it all creates a horribly dated mixture of the worst type of music that came out of the early 2010’s. Worse yet, it’s not fitting for any aspect of Wrestlemania’s presentation. This is the point where the show abandons its own aesthetics and instead tries to chase the trend of the day. It’s a square peg round hole mentality.
5/10
27 – Written In The Stars by Tinie Tempah
It gets so much worse. I don’t know what it was about all these songs in the 2010’s being about “making it” or “overcoming the odds” like Fort Minor’s Remember The Name or Eminem’s Not Afraid, but this song, this damn song is the absolute worst of that whole aesthetic movement. It’s only fitting that it scores one of the worst Wrestlemania’s of all time. Worse yet, this song is meant to be applied to a show main evented by John Cena. He doesn’t overcome odds, he is the odds. The show reminds me of one of the worst cultural period I’ve ever had to live through, and its song is so divorced from the actual WWE product that it might as well have come from a different planet, written in the stars, if ya will.
2/10
You notice how this was only 18 seconds? That’s because it’s all you need. Yes the song has Machine Gun Kelly in it, but dammit, those 18 seconds, and that image of John Cena, vs The Rock, is all you need. It sets the tone for a Wrestlemania show that is ostensibly a one-match card, but what a match. WWE knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that people wanted to see nothing but this showdown between two titans, and after every match, they played that same hook of the song to remind everyone that an earth-shattering confrontation is about to go down.
9/10
29 – Coming Home by REDACTED feat Skylar Grey
Well, this is just uncomfortable. Uh, yeah. The song sucks. A lot of the stuff I said in the paragraph about Wrestlemania 27 rings true about this. And yeah, I’m sure you can fill in the blanks for everything else I want to say. Moving on.
1/10
30 – Celebrate by Kid Rock
It’s generic, not bad, but not entirely good either, which is actually a huge achievement considering this is Kid Rock we’re talking about. In writing these, a question I’ve continued to find myself asking when considering how to rate these songs is how well they fit with both WWE and Wrestlemania. The key question is “would this song fit for any other major event?” If that answer is yes, then sometimes that’s a detractor. It means that the song isn’t distinct in any way, that this could be played over the speakers at an NFL game, or a Savannah Bananas showdown. It’s again, WWE’s problem of wanting to fit in and be taken seriously among major entertainment sources, but sanding off the rough edges that people love it for. It’s inauthentic.
6/10
31 Rise by David Guetta feat. Skylar Grey
This is another song that just feels soulless. The bridge and chorus fails to generate any real goosebumps. Worse yet, it doesn’t feel like it fits really any of the matches. The best of these themes are supposed to be evocative of at least one of the matches on the marquise, but when Skylar keeps singing about how “we will rise” it just sounds like its for the whole ensemble of WWE wrestlers. This the type of “every kid gets a trophy”/ “everyone gets a spot in the Andre the Giant Battle Royale” sentiment that makes the whole roster feel bland. This was a point where it didn’t seem like any one wrestler was supposed to be bigger than the WWE brand. The only one that did was Brock Lesnar at that time, and he was villified for it. This is a song that’s better used as a theme for one of the weekly TV shows or some B-level PPV, not the Grandaddy of ‘Em All.
5/10
32 – My House by Flo Rida
It stays bad. First off, the show is in Texas, so why are we getting Flo Rida to the song? Second off, the song needs to be good, so, again, WHY ARE WE GETTING FLO RIDA? Instead of something that’s meant to capture a big fight feel, we’re left with images of a lukewarm pool party at Mr. Rida’s place of living in some Orlando suburb. The first verse has such quality bars as “Make yourself at home. Tell me where you’ve been.” Yeah, nothing makes me want to watch Brock Lesnar kill somebody quite like filling Flo Rida in on my day before I crack a cold one. The show deserves much better.
3/10
33 – Green Light by Pitbull
It’s Florida, and while Orlando isn’t the 305, the trend has been gotten so bad that even Pitbull is an improvement. It again falls prey to the issue around the past couple of Mania themes being more about a party than a fight, but in a city like Orlando, it kinda makes sense. The whole show was insufferably built as the “Ultimate Thrill Ride” with a literal rollercoaster built on the entrance stage. While that might induce some cringes in the audience, I can’t stress enough how much WWE actually delivered. The matches all lived up, at all ends of the card, along with the surprise return of the Hardy Boyz which got me so heated I legit needed to change shirts at the watch-party I was hosting. Maybe I’m merciful to this song because the show was kind of good, but in this case, Pitbull gets the green light.
7/10
34 – New Orleans by Kid Rock
No, I will not be merciful to Kid Rock two times in the same article. He’s not even from New Orleans! Why did they bring him back?!
1/10
35 – Love Runs Out by One Republic
Like most One Republic songs, it’s good-not-great. The verses are kinda confusing, but the chorus does a good enough job of getting the blood pumping, and it doesn’t seem totally inappropriate for the context. It can vaguely fit a fighting type of aesthetic, but the song does suffer from, again, being everything to everyone. If it can be used for so many other shows and events, is it really made to be the theme of Wrestlemania?
6/10
36 – Blinding Lights by The Weeknd
Fun fact: I was supposed to be at this one, but then Rudy Gobert got a little sick and the world had to stop for a bit. Despite Wrestlemania taking place in glorified warehouse, this song right here made it feel like a major event. It was a case of the WWE being able to get a hold of one of the actual biggest and most hype songs of that era. Despite the fact that the world was in lockdown, this banger made us all feel like we could do the impossible, even if it was just for 3 minutes in our home-gyms. I only wish I could have heard 65,000 fans at Raymond James screaming their heads off as this song played out.
8/10
37 – Save Your Tears by The Weeknd
Fun fact: I was at this one. Day 1 was kinda miserable. Rain delayed it for much longer than I was anticipating, and I lost my phone which made me go back home earlier than I wanted to. Day 2, though, perfect rebound. I’m never going to forget watching the sunset from the upper deck of RayJay as this song’s instrumental chugged along, getting ready to see Daniel Bryan main event one last big show before he went off to Jacksonville. Sure, the song about jilting a lover might be a little inappropriate for a Wrestlemania, but in a world still coming out of the pandemic, it almost felt therpeutic to hear this, as if it was permission to finally party up a little bit. Those tears shed during the pandemic ought to be paused for a little bit.
7/10
38 – Sacrifice by The Weeknd
And we’ve finally jumped the shark. The Weeknd had done his service scoring these three Manias, but ultimately, this third outing feels a little flat, like a Budweiser left out in the sun for too long. Speaking of things that the WWE had been doing too much, it’s Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar in the main event again! This was a period where WWE had fallen into a drab pattern of stale predictability again, and going back to The Weeknd, who was already past his stage where he lit up the superbowl halftime show, just made them look they were clinging to the one good hit they had back in 2020.
6/10
39- Less Than Zero by The Weeknd
Well, WWE is never the quickest to learn a lesson. Another sad ballad from the Romeo of Respcting Your Rights sets the tone for this Mania, which was admittedly pretty dang good, save for the wet-fart of ending. Shoot, with how defeated I felt after watching the ending, maybe the sad-banger might actually have been a pretty good move. But if The Weeknd is going to be talking numbers on this song, then here’s my number for Less Than Zero:
-1/10
40 – Gasoline by The Weeknd
Maybe we need to start hosing Wrestlemanias on Tuesdays because I’m sick of the Weeknd. The song has, admittedly, a bit more juice than Less Than Zero or Save Your Tears, but hearing Abel mumble how he’s a nihilist at 5 AM doesn’t really carry the energy the show needs. Ironically enough gasoline does not fuel this show, which again, was one of the better ones in recent years, capped off by maybe the best main event in the history of the show. People will talk extensively about how good Wrestlemania XL was, but nobody is bringing up this song.
2/10
41 – FE!N by Travis Scott
We are so back. With a solid looking card spread across a full Easter weekend of action, fans of both the casual and hardcore variety are gonna have some problems getting this banger out of their head. Sure it may provoke the question of “what does FEIN even mean?” or “Why was Travis Scott even with John Cena and The Rock?” but between matches it’ll have them bobbing heads and raising hands. Again, FEIN’s ubiquity does hurt it a little, as this song as has certainly seem so exposure at Florida State football games and nightclubs across America. The point still stands though that WWE remembered the damn assignment when picking themes for this event, after learning, unlearning, and relearning, that it’s core, these songs need to get people ready to run through a wall. We listen to the best songs on here, because it makes us feel how we imagine these wrestlers are feeling when they’re going into the fight on the biggest possible stage.
9/10
I’m glad I could end this list on a positive. Here’s hoping Paul Levesque can keep cooking.
