Bryan Danielson Reveals Entrance Songs That He Thinks Are Perfect

Wrestling legend Bryan Danielson is set to face Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship later this month at Wembley Stadium. Ahead of his match, Danielson talked with Kerrang for their “Songs That Changed My Life” series.

Danielson’s picks proved to be an eclectic mix of pop, rock and punk and included:

AFI, “Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)” (The best entrance song of all time): “Besides The Final Countdown, CM Punk in Ring Of Honor came out to this song and it was perfect. I also think Steve Austin’s song is perfect. It’s all about it matching the character. Bullet Club Gold in AEW right now, their song gets stuck in my head. Minoru Suzuki’s song; he comes out and the whole crowd sings it. Wrestling songs are so cool when they gel with the person and the whole crowd really gets with it.”

The Offspring, “Self Esteem” (The first song I remember hearing): “When you’re a teenager, you’re going through self-esteem issues, alternating between, ‘Life is the best,’ and ‘I hate myself.’ It’s very relatable. I’m from Aberdeen, Washington, which is the hometown of Kurt Cobain, so there was a lot of that too, but Self Esteem was the first song that I really remember connecting to.”

Europe, “The Final Countdown” (The song I’d love to have as my entrance theme): “It’s the best. I started coming out to The Final Countdown when I was an independent wrestler in the United States. What happened was, I did a tour of Japan in 2004 and one of the music magazines had The 100 Worst Songs Of All Time, and Final Countdown I think was number one. I was like, ‘How is this number one?!’ But when you see The 100 Worst Songs Of All Time, you realise that you love 50 of those songs! I started listening to those songs and I hadn’t heard The Final Countdown in so long, I thought, ‘This would be great entrance music.’ I used it and it became something I was known for for a period of time. We had to stop using it, I think I’ve used it in AEW maybe twice, but it’s a really expensive song (laughs). It’s a Tony Khan decision if he wants to use the song.”

Vanilla Ice, “Ice Ice Baby” (The song that reminds me of my first show): “My first concert was Vanilla Ice, but it was after he was cool – he was on the downturn. Ice Ice Baby had come out, it was a huge hit, then everyone turned on him and thought he was shit. He was doing the fair circuit and he came to the Puyallup County Fair in Washington state. The opening act came out and played, everybody loved him, Vanilla Ice comes out and people were jeering him so much and making fun of him that he played two songs and went, ‘I’m outta here!’ and he left! It was great (laughs).”

Danielson also picked “The song I want played at my funeral” (Green Day, “Good Riddance – Time Of Your Life”) , “The most annoying song ever” (Avril Lavigne, “Sk8er Boi”) , “The song I sing at karaoke” (Backstreet Boys, “I Want It That Way”) , “The song that pumps me up before getting in the ring” (Frank Turner, “The Next Storm) , “The song that reminds me of school” (anything from The Beach Boys) , and “The song that cheers me up when I’m down” (Will Barley, “Send My Love To The System”) .

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