Music in professional wrestling

Music in professional wrestling serves a variety of purposes. The most common uses of music in professional wrestling is that of the entrance theme, a song or piece of instrumental music which plays as a performer approaches the ring. After a match, the entrance theme of the victor will normally be played as they exit the ring. Entrance themes are used to alert the audience to the immediate arrival of a wrestler, and to increase anticipation.

Entrance themes are often tailored to the gimmick of the wrestler they are written or selected for. For example, Jacob and Eli Blu (The Blu Brothers) had an entrance theme in the World Wrestling Federation that resembled a piece of blues music, while The Undertaker has often used entrance themes which resemble a dirge, including the ringing of an eerie bell and a quote of Chopin's Funeral March. In practice, modern day entrance themes are normally rock, rap, or R&B (especially for women), as these genres of music are popular with the professional wrestling key demographics.

Some entrance themes are accompanied by the wrestler's recorded voice saying his signature phrase. Examples of this include The Rock's recorded voice saying, "If you smell what the Rock is cookin'!" before his music starts, Booker T saying "Don't hate the player. Hate the game"(WCW) and "Can you dig it, Sucka?"(WWE) followed by his entrance theme and Ric Flair's signature exclamation of "Wooooooo!" prior to his entrance theme.

Due to licensing costs, entrance themes are often composed by the promotion for which the wrestlers perform in order to avoid having to pay royalties. A promotion might also purchase music from production libraries, which is considered to be cheaper than the royalties of commercial music, or use public domain music, which is available for no fee. Due to less restrictive copyright laws in Mexico, lucha libre promotions use mostly popular songs. In addition, ECW used popular music in order to promote a hip, edgy, counter-culture image.

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