PART 4: The 90’s and 2000’s
The WWF Attitude Era
While the earlier days of wrestling had their influence of heavy metal, arguably the most “mainstream” era of professional wrestling also had the most incorporation of heavier music and metal. The late 1990’s and into the earlier 2000’s were known as the “Attitude Era” which featured a grittier presentation, and a more adult styled product than what had preceded it. For those around my age, this was the era of wrestling that made us fans. Staples like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind/Mick Foley in the WWE/F and the NWO in WCW made up of big figures like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. This era featured some of the biggest stars the business has ever seen. There were of course plenty of others, but these are some of the bigger names of the time. When speaking to Jay Gambit, frontman/solo member and creator of the black metal/noise act Crowhurst, he stated “I was attracted pretty much everything the entire era of wrestling was about. Insanity, surreal characters, sex, violence, tables, ladders, explosions, fishnets.” There was a certain edge to the wrestling product that could be seen as why it could attract many in the edgier forms of music, and especially metal. Specifically during this era, Heavy Metal was utilized quite a bit in the major three companies: WCW, WWF, and ECW.
Jay Gambit Live
In the ECW promotion, they had a history and a penchant for using heavy metal for themes and presentation. One of the most iconic performers in the company, Rob Van Dam was synonymous with the Pantera classic “Walk” as his theme, and the crowd would chant “walk” along with Phil Anselmo with such energy it could give you goosebumps. Tommy Dreamer also had a classic song as his theme, deciding on “Man In The Box” of course performed by Alice in Chains. Easily one of the more interesting and special entrances in wrestling history though belongs to the drunken madman known as The Sandman. The Sandman would come to the ring drinking beer, smoking his cigarettes while the speakers would blast, what else, but “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. Sandman would spend the entirety of the song walking through the audience, around the ring, and wherever else he could drinking all the while. To touch on the Pantera idea earlier, the audience would sing along with the entire song, partake in drinking along with The Sandman and it was something that no other wrestler, certainly since him, has been able to duplicate.
Meanwhile, in the Southern based WCW, their use of metal was a bit lacking, but still had an ill fated character based around the genre. To capitalize on various popular trends, WCW would introduce charters based around movies, music and TV (such as Robocop or Scream actor David Arquette). While most of these were always fails, it can be argued that the KISS demon was one of the worst. The character would resemble Gene Simmons and was considered by those within the company as “dead on arrival” it faired so poorly.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCC0vtJw9qI]
In the WWF however, metal was running quite rampant. Stone Cold Steve Austin, an admitted fan of bands such as Black Label Society, and Metallica (and whose wife is a Meshuggah fan) had a very heavy riff oriented entrance theme that was said to have been inspired by Rage Against the Machine. Lower down on the totem poll was a tag-team called “The Headbangers” of Mosh and Thrasher. The names were obviously music and metal based, and they had stated as being fans of acts like Marlyn Manson and the bands of the era that would be a little more of the “popular” or Nu-Metal variety. This takes us into the biggest cross over aspect of metal and pro wrestling, which is Fozzy and Chris Jericho.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV_JXGBAPLA]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miFifM43]
