Kevin Nash talks about modern WWE theme songs while cracking on the two he had as Diesel during his run in the '90s in the World Wrestling Federation.
Kevin Nash has some of the most memorable theme songs in wrestling history. However, some would argue that his most iconic themes came from his membership in the original New World Order and the nWo Wolfpac. One thing that even Nash isn't arguing is that the original theme song created for Diesel in the WWE was not good.
For those unfamiliar, from 1993 until after he captured the WWE Championship in late 1994, his theme song was just the revving of a diesel engine and the sound of a horn. Speaking about that theme on his Kliq This podcast, Nash jokingly threw out a challenge to modern WWE Superstars to see if they could get the fans to sing along with that, just as they do with a contemporary theme song like the one that Seth Rollins has.
"I'd like to see one of these new age guys come out to the starting of a Mack truck [makes truck noises]. Then, the horn of a truck. Come out to that and see if they could get the people, because it just didn't seem to work for Diesel. It's kind of hard for people to make that guttural sound in unison, I think."
He would call his later theme, which existed throughout his run as the top babyface in WWE until he left for WCW, a rip-off of the theme to Roseanne, and joke that that was enough for him to decide to leave the company right then.
"Yeah, I had the glass break, but that was late Diesel. That was when I had kind of the Roseanne rip-off, the theme from Roseanne rip-off... You know what? I should have left. People ask, 'Why'd you leave?' I should have," he joked.
Speaking about the theme songs of today's WWE Superstars, Nash says it's now all about crowd interaction and Pavlovian responses, citing Cody Rhodes' "Kingdom" as an example.
"Now, it's like, if it's not something that they can interact with during segments as you walk to the ring... Before he gets to the barricades, [Cody] has the thing where he touches the ground and there's a high spot right there in the music, that's a sing-along. It's just pavlovian. It's just basic operant conditioning."
Even Cody has said that most of the crowd doesn't know the song's words; they just like the part where they say, "Woah!" Read his comments here.
Downstait's frontman, Zack Call, admitted they did not write that into Cody Rhodes' theme song, even though "Woah" has been a thread in all Cody's theme songs. Learn more here.
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