10 WWE Stars Who Gambled On A New Entrance Theme
6. The Rock Goes Hollywood
The Rock could never play heel for long, even if there was a more popular babyface to play off him.
He was simply too charismatic, the most charismatic pro wrestling star ever, and so he transcended pro wrestling. This pissed the fans off - they wanted to watch this megastar for life, on the small screen - and so to develop this reaction, WWE in a masterstroke leaned into his silver screen aspirations.
This Hollywood Rock character was tremendous, and the detail was reflected in his remixed theme.
Gone was the opening immediate 'If ya smell...' sting. It encouraged the sing-along-with-the-champ his incandescent 2003 promos were built around bantering off. Instead, the fans were at one reminded and detached from his greatness with a drawn-out drone of spectral synthesisers married with drone imagery of a big city skyline set at night. The idea - the f*cking genius idea - was to put over the unbearable idea that the Rock very much was above us all, living a far more glamorous life. It took a long old time, too, the effect of which saw Rock in the mind's eye luxuriating in it all.
When the riff struck, it was slower, more grandiose, distinctly less electrifying by expert, cruel design.