Say what you will about professional wrestling as sport, but the producers and star performers certainly know how to get the crowd amped up and ready for action. Since the inception of the WWE back in the 1950s, wrestlers have put on walkout music that’d usually reflect the character and tap into some kind of popular genre of the day. Up until the late 1990s, the then-WWF leant into the good guys vs bad guys formula, but then came the Attitude Era.

It was here that characters were much less well defined, and winners would be far more difficult to spot across the sprawling narratives. The era brought in the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kane, Kurt Angle, DX, and The Rock to be awe-inspiring winners despite often having traditional “bad guy” personas. It’s here that the WWE’s modern love of metal was born, fitting this new style of wrestler, and now being used to amp up the developmental system.

Plenty of pro wrestlers since the late 90s and early 00s have set the crowd alight with their own metal themes and by playing tracks from metal recording artists, but which stand as the greatest metal-WWE collaborations?

Best Metal Tracks as WWE Walkout Songs

There truly is only one place to start for the best metal tracks that were used as WWE walkout songs. Now the WWE’s chief content officer and the man who perfectly fused up-and-coming metal bands into his NXT scheduling, Triple H has long been tied to metal music. As part of DX, he’d walk out to a metal-infused theme, and as a solo wrestler, he’d often call on his good friend Lemmy Kilmister and Motörhead to help create his entrance tracks.

Easily the biggest, most bombastic, and most memorable of these collaborations comes in the form of The Game, featuring vocals from Lemmy himself. Coming in after Triple H, Randy Orton began to forge his legend. Still active and considered to be among the all-time greats, Rev Theory’s track Voices will also forever be hailed as legendary by WWE fans. Then, more recently, you can see CM Punk stirring up the crowd with The Fire from Killswitch Engage.

Best Metal Themes as WWE Walkout Songs

It likely won’t come as a surprise that a great many of the best WWE metal themes hail from the 90s and 00s, helping to forge legends. It’s why those who remain from the era still use them and why official products like the slot WWE Legends, which features greats like Stone Cold Steve Austin, lean heavily into metal. Found at the jackpot casino, not only does WWE Legends feature the wrestlers, but it’s backed by a rocking metal soundtrack.

Whenever the likes of Austin, Eddie Guerrero, Randy Savage, or Booker T hit the reels for a win, you see their signature moves. Get a big win on the bonus with them, and the game really amps up, just as the superstars did at WWE arenas countless times with their walkout songs. Naturally, the pinnacle of these metal themes was Stone Cold’s. Opening with the shattering of glass before letting some deep riffs rampage, it was perfect for Austin.

Close behind Stone Cold’s theme, I Won’t Do What You Tell Me, is Electrifying for The Rock. Leaning heavily into a superb guitar solo and a steady drum beat, all fans know when The Rock has arrived because of this theme. DX’s Are You Ready wreaked havoc through the 90s and 00s, epitomising their place as the foil to the biggest teams. Metal themes live strong to more recent eras, too, as shown by Paige’s now-iconic Stars in the Night.

So many of the biggest and most iconic WWE superstar walkout tracks have leant into or were totally metal. With NXT embedding metal in its events, it stands to reason that more wrestlers coming up to the WWE will opt for metal for their walkout themes.