Legendary WWE Entrance Theme Maker Jim Johnston Is NOT Back With The Company (WWE News)

Def Rebel set to cook for the foreseeable future.

by Michael Sidgwick
WWE Raw The New Day Xavier Woods Kofi Kingston
WWE

It is February. WWE has just promoted its annual Royal Rumble 'Premium Live Event', which means two things:

1) the two-night WrestleMania 41 card is starting to take shape, and

2) the 'WWE Universe' has suffered a collective bout of confusion over which wrestler had entered the titular matches.

The less-than-popular Def Rebel, WWE's in-house theme song composers, were flung back into the discourse over the weekend. Taking a temperature check across various corners of the online wrestling fandom yields the same reading: many vocal fans are cold towards today's themes. The complaints are all in a similar vein: the themes are both generic and indistinct, and a sharp downgrade from the themes that the more tenured wrestlers once used.

Even Bayley, on the Fanatics Royal Rumble live stream, seemed to share this opinion. She sarcastically said of her own Def Rebel theme, which debuted to poor reviews at WrestleMania 40, "What a song, huh? We love this song!"

All of which made a recent development exciting. On WWE Monday Night Raw on Netflix, a caption credited Jim Johnston - a revered composer of the Golden, New Generation, Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Eras - as the mind behind the New Day's new heel theme. This was revealed by both Fightful Select and the actual composers Sayzee and Mega Ran.

Any hope that Jim Johnston is back with WWE, but mistakenly credited on that particular theme, was quashed by Fightful, who have confirmed with sources within WWE that Johnston has not returned to WWE - nor are there any plans in place for that to happen.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!