The Past is Prologue: ECW Barely Legal 1997 (Well, The Music of It, Anyway)

RVD's moonsault is impressive, but his theme song was even more so
Photo Credit: WWE.com

A few weeks back, the folks involved with the Old School Wrestling Podcast did an episode of their show on ECW television, namely that of ECW TV from September 1995. In the episode, they brought up a point that genuinely surprised me in the sense that I tend to forget about the power of music. They noted that the recordings they had were VHS rips from the original airings, allowing the music to be intact. And ECW made a lot of aesthetic wonder out of taking music wholesale, a practice that obviously is more frowned upon with legal consequences now for wrestling.

If anything, it added a new effect to watching Barely Legal 1997. Since I'm not a very good reviewer, the matches all become a sort of blend of stiff kicks and weapon shots. But the music cues are the things that perk my ears up and make me wonder about what a song can say about a performer. While I enjoy the glossy presentation of WWE's product, the thing that will always disappoint me is their in-house music methods. Jim Johnston is a hard worker, but his plucking doesn't tend to say much about the company's wrestlers. If anything, it just matches a stereotype that doesn't allow for greater exploration of a person's tastes.

ECW Barely Legal 1997 does this very well, though, with simple song choices. Rob Van Dam comes out to a John Spencer Blues Explosion song, which adds something of a fun mishmash to his character that even using Pantera later wouldn't later be able to duplicate. Sandman looks like the goofiest talent in wrestling, and his "Enter Sandman" entrance, while awesome, can be picked apart pretty easily with time (namely the hilarity of a guy just walking around for three minutes with a beer and a cigarette as a sign of edginess). But him doing this same playing up of "edgy" schtick to Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life"? Totally badass. Hell, even the over-abundance of The Offspring fits a nice pre-major label era of punk rock shine.

It still surprises me that promoters don't try to dig into this idea more often. Sure, the aforementioned licensing essentially torpedoes a wide audience getting to hear a major act's work ever. But there are in-roads in this new little wrestling circle we're a part of. And it's not like a few great musicians aren't into wrestling. Damien Abraham of Canadian punk dynamo Fucked Up is a prominent fan, and as a big fan of their past few records, there's a lot that could be gleamed from a "Queen of Hearts" in even more ways than the awesome opening riff.

Unfortunately, great songs about wrestling seem to outnumber great songs used in wrestling. The 1980s has a lot of fine examples, as well as this ECW PPV. But as I see Terry Funk coming out to the Eagles' "Desperado" (an admittedly great choice despite my dislike of the Eagles), I wonder why no one used Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" as a theme in an independent promotion. It is a perfect analogue for Funk, of course, but considering Jerry Lynn had an arc like The Wrestler, I'm genuinely surprised that I didn't hear of it popping up once on a non-taped show.

Music matters in a capacity that sometimes even promos cannot, which is why I was taken to that experience during the show. There is only so much to say with focused closeups on stringy hair. There is only so much that can be said by a guy in a black towel before it becomes unneeded information. Why not just say it with "Come Out and Play"?