Rock & Rings: Why Wrestling Matters And What It Can Teach The Live Business

It all started with Gorgeous George — the dastardly human extravagance who sparked vitriolic reactions from pro wrestling fans across the country starting in the 1940s.

George popularized entrance music for wrestlers, slowly showboating to the ring to Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” At least that’s the legend and in wrestling (as in music), sometimes it’s better to believe the legend. 

Since then, music and wrestling have been willing and sometimes essential dance partners. Bob Dylan (of all people) considers meeting Gorgeous George one of the seminal moments in his development as a performer. 

“He winked and seemed to mouth the phrase, `You’re making it come alive,”‘ Dylan wrote in 2004. ” I never forgot it. It was all the recognition and encouragement I would need for years.”

Wrestlers never stopped inspiring musicians. Ric Flair is a go-to reference for rappers extolling their money-making and woman-wooing prowess. He was — and still is, at 75 — “the Rolex-wearing, diamond-ring-wearing, kiss-stealing (WOO!), wheeling dealing, Limousine-riding, jet-flying son of a gun.” That’s a line any hip-hop artist would be proud to claim as his own bar.

Cyndi Lauper befriended wrestling personalities Captain Lou Albano (appearing in videos for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Time After Time” and “She Bop” and the subject of an entire NRBQ song) and Wendi Richter in the early 1980s. When Vince McMahon decided to wrest his promotion from the strictures of the territory system and take what was then the World Wrestling Federation national with a coast-to-coast touring schedule and TV deal, he ushered in the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling era, using Lauper’s friendships to advance in-ring stories.

Music stars still make cameos at WWE events. Jelly Roll and Machine Gun Kelly were involved in angles at SummerSlam. Bad Bunny was featured in programming between 2021 and 2023, even holding the 24/7 Championship for a time and participating in the 2022 Royal Rumble.

Some have taken a material interest in predetermined fighting (yes, it’s predetermined, sorry to spoil the magic, but never call it “fake”). In the early 1990s, producer Rick Rubin provided equity to wrestling legend Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling. He was a silent partner to the chronically unsilent Cornette and SMW alums talk of being told to be kind to the weird bearded man backstage without knowing he’d produced, say, Slayer’s Reign in Blood.

Billy Corgan knows these stories. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman, in this week’s Pollstar cover story (see page 22), discusses his affection for pro wrestling (in addition to plenty of other things). It began when he was four, watching with his octogenarian Belgian great-grandmother. Seeing Dick the Bruiser do battle sparked a lifelong love and in 2017, he put his money where his heart is and bought the National Wrestling Alliance, the world’s oldest still-extant promotion.

Corgan’s heart fills when he talks about wrestling; he says it scratches an itch “music used to scratch” 

“Wrestling really is the universal language. It’s supposed to be a voice to reach everyone,” he says. It’s an art — and yes, that is what it is: performance art — that can appeal to a 4-year-old and his 81-year-old Belgian great-grandmother in the early ’70s in Chicago and to a 4-year-old and his hardscrabble, tobacco-farming 85-year-old great-grandmother in Trousdale County, Tennessee, in the mid-80s. And to any other pair of disparate people in disparate places. 

Wrestling in 2024 is doing hot business, in part because the WWE remembered compelling stories, coupled with acts of athletic achievement, can appeal across the demographic spectrum. The Endeavor/TKO takeover was followed by the departure of the scandal-ridden McMahon, with his son-in-law Paul “Triple H” Levesque taking over as chief content officer. The result has been a critically lauded era.

While the TV ratings don’t compare to the halcyon 1990s — the television landscape is vastly different — the live gates are more impressive than ever even as the touring schedule has scaled down. Gone are the days of 300 shows a year; under TKO, WWE has reduced the number of untelevised “house shows” while amping up its marquee events with both Wrestlemania and SummerSlam now exclusively staged in stadiums. SummerSlam is slated to be a two-night event going forward, as Wrestlemania has been since 2020.

Consider Wrestlemania XL at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, which drew 145,298 over two nights, a record for the show. 

And merch? A wrestling vet once said it’s important to remember that the pomp and derring-do of wrestling is simply a complicated way to sell t-shirts to 8-year-olds. By that metric, too, wrestling is doing better than ever. According to TKO, per-cap merch sales for Wrestlemania XL were a shade over $53. As a comparison, in 2023, according to Pollstar sister publication VenuesNow, Taylor Swift’s merch per-cap was $42.

What can this teach the broader live business? A focus on targeted touring rather than a be-everywhere-all-at-once strategy is paying dividends, both at the box office and to the performers’ quality of life. Many long-time WWE hands have gushed at the more manageable touring schedule. 

Most importantly, there’s the renewed focus on fan connections. A criticism of the late McMahon era was that storylines were jumbled and abandoned; wrestlers were pushed not as a result of fan response but due to Vince’s taste and he was resistant to outside opinions. Levesque, conversely, has returned to long-term storytelling that doesn’t rely on short-term gains, but banks on emotional investment. It’s an approach Corgan shares and wants to bring to his admittedly much-smaller promotion. 

“Write hit songs and win at the top level,” he says. “This is what the wrestling business was built on: mainstream appeal, from the little kid to grandma.”