Jim Johnston Slams Modern Wrestling Themes for Failing to Evoke Fan Reaction

Jim Johnston is a legendary composer for WWE who worked with the company for close to 32 years until he was fired by the company back in 2017. Johnston has created several iconic theme songs throughout his career, including The Undertaker, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and many more. Therefore, his opinion certainly carries a lot of weight. Jim Johnston also recently ripped modern pro wrestling themes for being generic and not making fans feel anything.

The pro wrestling world is constantly evolving and something that used to be accepted in the past, might no longer be seen the same way now. The same can be said when it comes to pro wrestlers in general.

A wrestler’s entrance theme is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of their overall presentation. A weak entrance theme would only do more disservice to the wrestler than anything else.

While speaking to Conrad Thompson on Conversations With Conrad, Jim Johnston talked about how pro wrestling music has changed in his absence. He proceeded to rip modern pro wrestling themes for being generic and not making fans feel anything.

”Music, for me, is all about making people feel something. That’s its purpose,” Johnston said. “There’s so much music out there that is so much better produced than anything I can do… and it doesn’t make you feel anything.”

It doesn’t make you feel anything, it doesn’t have anything to do with the character anymore, which I think is an incredible missed opportunity … It’s certainly homogenous and very generic … It feels like it’s thought out like, ‘this guy is hard-hitting, so hard-hitting drums!’ and it doesn’t make you feel anything.”

Jim Johnston also recently claimed that AEW ghosted him after he offered to write songs for them. There are many fans who would disagree with what Johnston said, as the likes of Chris Jericho and Adam Cole’s themes in AEW are certainly very good pieces of music. Regardless, Johnston is entitled to his own opinion and that is all that matters.

What do you think of Jim Johnston’s criticism of modern pro wrestling themes? Do you agree with his opinion that they are generic and don’t make fans feel anything, or do you think there are still some great entrance themes in wrestling today? Leave a comment.