Vince McMahon’s Father Told Him Entrance Music Would ‘Completely Kill’ the Pro Wrestling Industry

Vince McMahon is the CEO of WWE and has the last word in everything that goes on in the company. Before taking over the company, he would work under his father Vince McMahon Sr., and it seems his father had a very interesting opinion when it came to entrance music for pro wrestlers.

Veteran WWE music composer Jim Johnston is responsible for composing some of the most iconic entrance music for WWE Superstars including the likes of The Undertaker, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and more.

While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Johnston revealed a story of when Vince McMahon wanted to incorporate entrance music for pro wrestlers, to which his father didn’t have the best reaction. His father allegedly told him that entrance music will completely kill the pro wrestling business.

“And so one night, I saw this guy I had seen a lot of times and he said, ‘Didn’t you say you write music or something like that?’ And then he explained that he worked for WWE and he was the Art Director for them. He had been asked to put together a video for a [cable TV convention], and he said, ‘I can stumble through and put together a video but I have no clue how to put music to it. If you wanna give it a try’ so I did, met Vince [McMahon], Vince and I inexplicably hit off tremendously well and this is early on when there really wasn’t entrance music. No, not ‘there really wasn’t,’ there wasn’t entrance music.

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Matter of fact, one of my favorite stories was Vince’s father, when Vince bought the company from his dad and he wanted to put music in and his father told him, ‘If you put music to this program, you will completely kill this business.’ So, big miss by dad right there.

Vince McMahon’s idea ultimately proved to be a massive success as entrance theme songs turned out to be a huge part of a WWE Superstar’s character. Johnston also criticized WWE and AEW for having very mediocre entrance music. We will have to see if the companies will improve in that aspect in the future.