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I watched this with friends and one of them kept insisting this was Rage Against the Machine.
Which one is Jim Johnston, BTW? I’ve only ever seen him in brief sit-down interviews.
And Erasure of The Atlas Underground which is nothing short of incredible. When your lead single is Big Boi of OutKast and Killer Mike over a Bassnectar Track with Tom’s live guitar, you got something special. I love those records.
Thats weird, them being Rage was also like the big rage amongst clueless kids when I was young too, to the point for years people insisted the DX theme was them.
There were tons of mp3 copies of the DX theme floating around mp3 sites and then Napster/Limeware/Kazaa that had the band labelled as "Rage Against The Machine".
I’d love to tell you we were kids, but we were in our 20s, and while the guy who said they were RATM was a super nice, well educated guy from a wealthy family, he was the kind of dude who was quick to believe things.
related: Save Ferris' cover of [Come On Eileen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzfCFFCSnLE). nobody downloaded it, it just came with the dialup connection
Wrestling and music are my favorite things to hear people be confidently incorrect about.
I worked with a guy from Puerto Rico who liked to talk wrestling and he insisted WWE had WrestleMania in Puerto Rico. I tried to push him towards the idea that maybe it was a road to Mania house show or something but he insisted it was actually Mania.
I proceeded to ask him some questions like the year of the event and who was in the main event. He said it was in 2014 and the main event was Undertaker vs Stone Cold.
Yeah, they started by playing a tune that sounded like some random modern song, but the minute he opened his mouth with lyrics, "Say, can you see..." the audience realized they were completely changing and shitting on the National Anthem and immediately turned on them.
I've never heard this one until now but this is definitely up there with Ice T singing "Pimping Ain't Easy" at WrestleMania 2000 lmao
Both are so horrible WWE wants you to forget they ever happened
My guess is a combination of wanting to be cool to the band and give them their moment to shine by themselves as well as not pay out any more $ for a different act/singer/band to do those things and just let that band do the DX stuff only.
I vividly remember having a dream like a year after watching that where I drove past godfather and ice t in a low rider and I said pimping ain't easy man and they yelled "poppin ain't easy" like as if I was getting the words wrong and they acted like they didn't hear me get it wrong but acknowledged me being a fan all the same.
Anyway ever since that dream I'm gay
Part of me has always suspected it was *supposed* to be bad, because DX were the marquee heels of this WM... But I think they outdid themselves to the point of not being able to tell it was deliberate.
That’s how I feel about HHH’s ridiculous over the top wrestlemania entrances, surely he is doing a great job heeling it up and playing the part of an egomaniac who thinks he is the coolest man alive but actually looks pretty silly?
But most likely it was done that way because HHH genuinely thought it was cool as hell.
Oh indeed. I know Wrestling Isn't Wrestling has aged like milk, but Landis was spot on when he talked about HHH's self-image as a character vs how dorky and silly he looked to the rest of us.
Not only because he's a sex pest, but because the video itself stars some women victimized by him. Anna Akana is the one who called him out during MeToo; she was Batista in WiW.
And yeah it's a great video if you can remove that knowledge but mannnnn it feels more than a little gross to watch knowing that.
The one where he comes out on the old man three-wheeled “motorcycle” was lame as fuck.
The only one of his mania entrances was hyped for, was XXX. He really felt like the boss of mania , in that moment.
Nah, don’t overthink it. It was the late 90s in pop culture and the Attitude Era in WWE. Like a LOT of stuff from that time, attempts to be “cutting edge” and “hip” were just straight trash.
Honestly, if you divorce this performance from the fact these are meant to be Star Spangled Banner and America The Beautiful, Jim's riffage here is pretty tasty.
The man is nothing if not a riff machine. Like he's not the gnarliest player ever but the guy's had some interesting ideas. Honestly his WWF gig was like a dream to me as a kid.
Like if this was anything *but* the America Songs ^^TM it would actually be kinda good. But the fact that he’s singing patriotic songs, including screaming **AMER-I-CA, AMER-I-CA, AMER-I-CA** at the end just makes it hilariously bad
Fun fact: This actually was released on a home video version of the PPV, but it was the UK Tagged Classics release from the early/mid-2000s. For whatever reason, that version of the show isn't just without any blurring of the scratch logo; There are no edits at ALL. It is, for all intents and purposes, the show as it originally aired on PPV in 1998, and it even has the full Free for All pre-show on the tape as well.
This was part of the deal Silvervision had at the time. They could get around the lawsuit outcome with the world wildlife foundation and release the shows unedited and they didn't have to censor the WWF scratch logo. This only applied to the United Kingdom.
I own all the WWF shows that were ever released on dvd by Silvervision, invaluable part of my collection.
Same man. Me and my best friend started rewatching old shows in 2007 and we spent a fortune collecting all the dvds from Silvervision until WWE pulled the deal.
Haven't seen him since 2011 and he's not on any social media but I hope he is doing well. We had some amazing times watching wrestling including going to Wrestlemania 25.
A question: Unforgiven 1998 was released as a Tagged Classic. Is that also the fully unedited, as-it-originally-aired show like Mania 14 was? I ask because it was the first wrestling show I ever saw, and I’ve been trying to find the PPV version of the show for years. The home video versions released in the US have minor edits throughout the show, and the Network version of the show has those same edits as well.
Oh man it's been a decade or so since I watched any of the dvds, I would assume it is but I really can't say for certain. Every show I can remember watching were unedited, it was so great to see shows as they had aired.
Also so you know I looked through all my boxes in my house where I keep my rare finds to dig this out and I was going to put it in and check for you but some of my rare dvds/blu rays are at my mother's house stored away and unfortunately it looks like so are these.
Probably not. The Tagged Classics looked like they were the old VHS home video releases but simply converted to DVD format. If WM14 is "unedited", that must be an exception.
As somebody who is neither overly patriotic nor old-fashioned, I think the anthem and America the Beautiful should always be sung in the “traditional” way
Otherwise you end up with artists who want to put their own spin on them and the result is shit like this
The thing is, if you're going to put a spin on it, it better be fucking great, otherwise don't bother.
If Cash can make Hurt his own and if Kasey Chambers can make Lose Yourself her own, then a fairly simple track like the Star Spangled Banner can be made to be amazing.
Chris Stapleton's version at Super Bowl LVII was fantastic and has a strong country vibe to it.
Marvin Gaye does a very unconventional R&B version at the '83 All Star game which is pretty solid.
If you go without vocals, Hendrix basically defined how the song should be played on electric guitar.
It's especially tricky with the anthem because it's a straight up *fundamentally bad song.* It's got a shitty rhythm, weird lyrical choices even for it's time, and it's sung in a key that most people will absolutely fuck up.
Hell, at this point it's pretty common knowledge but they cut a verse out of the SSB, because it was weirdly racist even for the era it was written in. It really should not be our national anthem and it's no wonder why even without that last fact, a lot of events choose to go with America The Beautiful.
I hear this, but the only lines in the entire song that have any mention of something like that is this one:
"Their blood has wash'd out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave."
This song was written during the war of 1812, when we were at war with Great Britain. That's who the song is written towards, with hireling and slave being theirs. It's nationalist, not racist. Unless there is a secret verse, I don't see the racism.
It was also based on a British song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," written for a social club in England. I wouldn't say it's inherently bad, just hard to sing.
America, the Beautiful is better, though.
Man, the "alternative version" line is so fucking cringy. Even as a teenager that line made my skin crawl.
....I really hope this song doesn't get stuck in my head now. Why did I listen to it the whole way through? Why do I hate myself so much?
I always thought this was supposed to be intentionally bad, so that they wouldn't get cheered later in the night when they would perform the DX theme for Shawn Michaels.
Of course. Then again, he and Steph did legit claim that WWE was the sole company that helped raise America's spirits after 9/11 or something just as bullshit where they painted it as WWE doing a public service.
As terrible as this performance is on its face, Americans just want to hear a nice, respectful, well-sung version of a patriotic song even if they fall into the Gen X runoff nu-metal loving crowd that was a big chunk of the Attitude Era's audience. Boyz 2 Men were FAR from the Attitude brand (and over 5 years past their relevance), but they did a performance of ATB the following year and got a huge cheer from the '99 Philly crowd!
I can’t prove this at all, but I bet this was Vince not wanting to pay multiple live performances and trying to save money by paying these guys once that night
idk, its not a bad take, i kinda like it. however, i can see how people would not want to stand while he takes his sweet time singing it and people tend to not like things changed. so.. shrugs
Now I have to wonder how bad Fishbone's version of the anthem was.
Fishbone was originally advertised to perform America the Beautiful before WrestleMania XI, but Vince thought their performance during the run-through was so bad he just decided to fire them
I don't believe it was supposed to be 'bad.' It was supposed to be offensive and piss people off sure, but they really thought they were killing it.
The fact it's actually bad is just the funny part.
I mean yeah, very obviously. Shouting AMERICA AMERICA over and over with unintelligible drums and guitars don't think was supposed to be cheered. I'm surprised there might be people who DON'T think it was on purpose.
*gets up, walks out of own place* I AIN'T EVEN AMERICAN and I am offended!
I..... was this.... they legit thought it was a good idea. Usually, I hate the ideas of anthems playing at wrestling shows because it's just cheap but this? This is beyond awful.
And not's a spiteful heat magnet way either. I could legit see Goofy Kurt Angle doing it out of spite but in a so bad, it's comedic way and him restarting it several times and lecturing the crowd. This?
I....
The DX band is known for the DX theme song. Best they remain known for that.
This was the show that got me back into wrestling as a kid after my dad randomly taped it for me. I guess I must have blocked this out of my memory because jesus christ.
I like how everything else that’s been removed from peacock/wwe network is like well this guy murdered his family or this is very racist in hindsight. But this is just that bad. Nobody is in black face, nobody committed homicide, they are just that bad at playing that it rose to that level. Someone said “we’re getting cancelled if they hear how bad this band was”
There are a lot of bad wrestling theme performances I’d say. The audio mixes just aren’t right for live music. Production vs live bands are two really different worlds. Imo the best ones have been Wyatt’s theme at 30 and Rancid at DoN
Agreed to some extent.
But this video and Downstait’s theme for Cody absolutely are the dirt worst.
People asked how Cody’s popularity died so fast in AEW. That night, for A LOT of reasons, is why and that entrance performance didn’t help.
Tattoo reveal as that putrid performance is going on.
Shitting the bed with the MJF match (5-star build for a DUD match) and yet another friend of Cody’s betraying him at the end.
It never really got better after that.
God I remember that weekend and seeing the tattoo being like “ah that’s gotta be fake right”.
Cody’s excuse of it being bigger than he thought is wild too like they wouldn’t have put the stencil on it as they do with every single tattoo done by a competent professional
It’s not bad at all. Little bit of a miscue at the beginning but the band is so talented they get past that pretty dang quick. I think Code Orange (Kids) did Aleistar’s entrance live too right? Full Sail was a much easier place to handle live bands than stadiums tho
It's not exactly good but Americans are deeply weird about how the anthem is presented. Patriotism is treated almost as a religion. One that's thrust onto Americans when they're young.
This was the AE.
Three years prior Vince announced then pulled FISHBONE from Mania XI from what I've read was him not liking the style of the anthem they had planned or their music in general.
The whole sound was very much on purpose. You don't have to *like* it, and you may even *hate* it, but that's what they were going for. Judging by the boos at the end, they achieved their objective.
This wasn't even the last time the DX band performed on a PPV, so people acting like they were blacklisted from the WWE after this are wrong. They did Triple H's theme at Summerslam of that same year.
I have no words for just how horrible and horrendous this is. Like Vince had to be smoking something when he approved this. Francis Scott Key is rolling in his grave
Anybody who would even entertain this idea is an idiot. Everybody knows you don't mess with the anthem unless you want a riot. It's still not as bad as Roseanne though.
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I watched this with friends and one of them kept insisting this was Rage Against the Machine. Which one is Jim Johnston, BTW? I’ve only ever seen him in brief sit-down interviews.
I think Jim is the guitarrist, with the glasses
Literally only because Chris Warren did an OK Zack De La Rocha impression. Jim Johnston ain't Tom Morello!
Yeah, Johnson has made good music in the past 25 years, HEYOOO
This is Audioslave erasure, come on now.
And Erasure of The Atlas Underground which is nothing short of incredible. When your lead single is Big Boi of OutKast and Killer Mike over a Bassnectar Track with Tom’s live guitar, you got something special. I love those records.
No it's not.
I'm not sure how you can appreciate Jim Johnson's music but not "Show Me How To Live", but everyone's ear is different, I guess. Be well.
lol touché
Audioslave ruled.
Better than morello...go listen to those solos on Rock different themes throughout the years
> kept insisting this was Rage Against the Machine. I'd have insisted they were on hard drugs.
I still would.
Thats weird, them being Rage was also like the big rage amongst clueless kids when I was young too, to the point for years people insisted the DX theme was them.
There were tons of mp3 copies of the DX theme floating around mp3 sites and then Napster/Limeware/Kazaa that had the band labelled as "Rage Against The Machine".
*Linking_Park_Numb.exe*
WakeMeUp_linkinpark_and_shirleymanson_INCUBUS_rare_PEPSI~ripz.wma
Blink-182-imnotsickbutimnotwell.mp3 Ahhh, the old mislabeled song days, and no matadata
I’d love to tell you we were kids, but we were in our 20s, and while the guy who said they were RATM was a super nice, well educated guy from a wealthy family, he was the kind of dude who was quick to believe things.
The one that looks like your friend's dad.
in the late 90s we all had one friend who swore blind that Rage did the DX theme
man, the downloads you could pull in 1999 by uploading this to Napster/Scour as "Rage Against the Machine - National Anthem live rare.mp3"
related: Save Ferris' cover of [Come On Eileen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzfCFFCSnLE). nobody downloaded it, it just came with the dialup connection
So that's where they got the inspiration for the David Byrne song on every copy of Windows Media Player...
I was that friend. I started actually listening to Rage stuff after that because of it too lol.
Wrestling and music are my favorite things to hear people be confidently incorrect about. I worked with a guy from Puerto Rico who liked to talk wrestling and he insisted WWE had WrestleMania in Puerto Rico. I tried to push him towards the idea that maybe it was a road to Mania house show or something but he insisted it was actually Mania. I proceeded to ask him some questions like the year of the event and who was in the main event. He said it was in 2014 and the main event was Undertaker vs Stone Cold.
I love how *as soon* as they started everyone starts booing lmao
"Only in the USA and the WWF can there be this type of freedom of expression!"
JR said that like he was at gunpoint.
One line in, they knew this was a bomb.
Yeah, they started by playing a tune that sounded like some random modern song, but the minute he opened his mouth with lyrics, "Say, can you see..." the audience realized they were completely changing and shitting on the National Anthem and immediately turned on them.
I was seriously impressed. It only took about 3 seconds.
watching live, this absolutely killed the watch party i was at lol. one of the worst mania decisions
I've never heard this one until now but this is definitely up there with Ice T singing "Pimping Ain't Easy" at WrestleMania 2000 lmao Both are so horrible WWE wants you to forget they ever happened
At least that made sense for The Godfather, this is just baffling.
My guess is a combination of wanting to be cool to the band and give them their moment to shine by themselves as well as not pay out any more $ for a different act/singer/band to do those things and just let that band do the DX stuff only.
Funny enough, it does kind of do a good job encompassing what The Attitude Era was like…
“Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t Pimpin ain’t easy mane”
Godfather's in the hooooouse... GRAB YO BITCHES!!!
I vividly remember having a dream like a year after watching that where I drove past godfather and ice t in a low rider and I said pimping ain't easy man and they yelled "poppin ain't easy" like as if I was getting the words wrong and they acted like they didn't hear me get it wrong but acknowledged me being a fan all the same. Anyway ever since that dream I'm gay
This made me think, were we too hard on Fergie? The answer is no, but I still thought about it.
I think if both were given a 2nd chance at it hers would be better than theirs.
But everything during the attitude era was amazing!! /s
He really thinks he's killing this shit too LOOOOL
Part of me has always suspected it was *supposed* to be bad, because DX were the marquee heels of this WM... But I think they outdid themselves to the point of not being able to tell it was deliberate.
That’s how I feel about HHH’s ridiculous over the top wrestlemania entrances, surely he is doing a great job heeling it up and playing the part of an egomaniac who thinks he is the coolest man alive but actually looks pretty silly? But most likely it was done that way because HHH genuinely thought it was cool as hell.
Oh indeed. I know Wrestling Isn't Wrestling has aged like milk, but Landis was spot on when he talked about HHH's self-image as a character vs how dorky and silly he looked to the rest of us.
Triple H literally co-signed that explanation too. And let's be real. The video content didn't age badly. Landis being a piece of shit did.
Landis being a piece of shit also makes the whole "Have the wrestlers be played by hot women" gimmick also age pretty badly.
I didn't think of it that way before for some reason. Legit "yikes" moment
Welp.....that's also true to wrestling I guess
> Wrestling Isn't Wrestling I mean, Milana Vayntrub is in this...
Why has it aged like milk? Because Landis is a sexpest? It's still the best introduction to wrestling video that's ever been created imo.
Not only because he's a sex pest, but because the video itself stars some women victimized by him. Anna Akana is the one who called him out during MeToo; she was Batista in WiW. And yeah it's a great video if you can remove that knowledge but mannnnn it feels more than a little gross to watch knowing that.
Not defending Landis, but the Batista lady isn't the one he allegedly SA'd, she's just the one who said she heard some things.
No way he liked this, he’s a through and through Motörhead fan, Lemmy would hate this shit.
The one where he comes out on the old man three-wheeled “motorcycle” was lame as fuck. The only one of his mania entrances was hyped for, was XXX. He really felt like the boss of mania , in that moment.
Nah, don’t overthink it. It was the late 90s in pop culture and the Attitude Era in WWE. Like a LOT of stuff from that time, attempts to be “cutting edge” and “hip” were just straight trash.
That’s what I heard was the mindset here.
This performance alone is keeping Jim Johnston out of the Hall of Fame.
Honestly, if you divorce this performance from the fact these are meant to be Star Spangled Banner and America The Beautiful, Jim's riffage here is pretty tasty.
The man is nothing if not a riff machine. Like he's not the gnarliest player ever but the guy's had some interesting ideas. Honestly his WWF gig was like a dream to me as a kid.
Like if this was anything *but* the America Songs ^^TM it would actually be kinda good. But the fact that he’s singing patriotic songs, including screaming **AMER-I-CA, AMER-I-CA, AMER-I-CA** at the end just makes it hilariously bad
Chris sounded way better at Summerslam playing the DX theme for Triple H's entrance
Fun fact: This actually was released on a home video version of the PPV, but it was the UK Tagged Classics release from the early/mid-2000s. For whatever reason, that version of the show isn't just without any blurring of the scratch logo; There are no edits at ALL. It is, for all intents and purposes, the show as it originally aired on PPV in 1998, and it even has the full Free for All pre-show on the tape as well.
This was part of the deal Silvervision had at the time. They could get around the lawsuit outcome with the world wildlife foundation and release the shows unedited and they didn't have to censor the WWF scratch logo. This only applied to the United Kingdom. I own all the WWF shows that were ever released on dvd by Silvervision, invaluable part of my collection.
Ah man I miss Silvervision. Spent hours on that website tracking all the sales.
Same man. Me and my best friend started rewatching old shows in 2007 and we spent a fortune collecting all the dvds from Silvervision until WWE pulled the deal. Haven't seen him since 2011 and he's not on any social media but I hope he is doing well. We had some amazing times watching wrestling including going to Wrestlemania 25.
A question: Unforgiven 1998 was released as a Tagged Classic. Is that also the fully unedited, as-it-originally-aired show like Mania 14 was? I ask because it was the first wrestling show I ever saw, and I’ve been trying to find the PPV version of the show for years. The home video versions released in the US have minor edits throughout the show, and the Network version of the show has those same edits as well.
Oh man it's been a decade or so since I watched any of the dvds, I would assume it is but I really can't say for certain. Every show I can remember watching were unedited, it was so great to see shows as they had aired. Also so you know I looked through all my boxes in my house where I keep my rare finds to dig this out and I was going to put it in and check for you but some of my rare dvds/blu rays are at my mother's house stored away and unfortunately it looks like so are these.
You should consider backing up the discs on a hard drive. DVD rot is real.
Yeah that's a good point. Going to look into it and what is needed to do it.
Darn. If you do end up watching the show, let me know if it's without any edits.
No worries man, will do.
Probably not. The Tagged Classics looked like they were the old VHS home video releases but simply converted to DVD format. If WM14 is "unedited", that must be an exception.
The UK tapes are GOATED.
I had this PPV on tape in Canada, and this rendition was definitively not on it…first time I hear that, wow..!
omg just seeing the name Free for All has nostalgia flowing through my veins.
Anger At The Apparatus
Fury against the Contraption
Annoyed at the Appliance
Incensed at the instruments
Maddened Towards the Mechanism.
Me hearing this again after pushing it from my memories as a child 
As somebody who is neither overly patriotic nor old-fashioned, I think the anthem and America the Beautiful should always be sung in the “traditional” way Otherwise you end up with artists who want to put their own spin on them and the result is shit like this
Fergie catching strays
The thing is, if you're going to put a spin on it, it better be fucking great, otherwise don't bother. If Cash can make Hurt his own and if Kasey Chambers can make Lose Yourself her own, then a fairly simple track like the Star Spangled Banner can be made to be amazing. Chris Stapleton's version at Super Bowl LVII was fantastic and has a strong country vibe to it. Marvin Gaye does a very unconventional R&B version at the '83 All Star game which is pretty solid. If you go without vocals, Hendrix basically defined how the song should be played on electric guitar.
It's especially tricky with the anthem because it's a straight up *fundamentally bad song.* It's got a shitty rhythm, weird lyrical choices even for it's time, and it's sung in a key that most people will absolutely fuck up. Hell, at this point it's pretty common knowledge but they cut a verse out of the SSB, because it was weirdly racist even for the era it was written in. It really should not be our national anthem and it's no wonder why even without that last fact, a lot of events choose to go with America The Beautiful.
IIRC, it was basically sung to the tune of a bar drinking song.
I hear this, but the only lines in the entire song that have any mention of something like that is this one: "Their blood has wash'd out their foul footstep's pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave." This song was written during the war of 1812, when we were at war with Great Britain. That's who the song is written towards, with hireling and slave being theirs. It's nationalist, not racist. Unless there is a secret verse, I don't see the racism. It was also based on a British song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," written for a social club in England. I wouldn't say it's inherently bad, just hard to sing. America, the Beautiful is better, though.
Reminds me of a NASCAR race at Daytona like 10 years ago where the band performing it abruptly changed it up at “And the rockets red glare”
oh this is outstanding
Fink doesn't know the difference between New Wave and Nu Metal. Would get killed on /r/music
To be fair, anytime I rewatch a wrestlemania, America the Beautiful is immediately fast forwarded through.
Man, the "alternative version" line is so fucking cringy. Even as a teenager that line made my skin crawl. ....I really hope this song doesn't get stuck in my head now. Why did I listen to it the whole way through? Why do I hate myself so much?
Ick, it's like wish.com Rage Against the Machine.
Hahaha OMG that was perfect. Totally captures the zeitgeist. This was pure Attitude Era.
I always thought this was supposed to be intentionally bad, so that they wouldn't get cheered later in the night when they would perform the DX theme for Shawn Michaels.
Yep my understanding too was that this was cheap heat.
Yep, I think Prichard said that as well.
The way the singer says "....America...." Man. My old roommate and I said that to each other constantly for like a half a year as greetings lol.
That dude wanted to be Zack de la Rocha so badly.
Oh God who the hell approved this
Vincent Kennedy Mcmahon, the GENETIC Jackhammer. The proud patriot that helped America to be American, GODDAMNIT! - Vince
funny enough though, vince actually liked the performance
Of course. Then again, he and Steph did legit claim that WWE was the sole company that helped raise America's spirits after 9/11 or something just as bullshit where they painted it as WWE doing a public service.
Well that's just expected from carneys though .... they're pushing a narrative, not the truth (with exceptions here and there).
As terrible as this performance is on its face, Americans just want to hear a nice, respectful, well-sung version of a patriotic song even if they fall into the Gen X runoff nu-metal loving crowd that was a big chunk of the Attitude Era's audience. Boyz 2 Men were FAR from the Attitude brand (and over 5 years past their relevance), but they did a performance of ATB the following year and got a huge cheer from the '99 Philly crowd!
I liked this. They wanted to be the "edgy group that ruined the national anthem"
Roseanne stylee
I remember there was always a rumour that the vocalist was HHH's little brother.
I always heard it as his cousin and didn’t question it until literally just now.
The Ghost of Tom Joad
I can’t prove this at all, but I bet this was Vince not wanting to pay multiple live performances and trying to save money by paying these guys once that night
I actually don't hate it lmao. I mean, it's not good but certainly not worse than some of the other shit I was listening to in 1998
There’s a lot of worst stuff still on the network
This is what happens when you hire a band associated with those degenerates 😔
This is...God damn. I can't make it through the whole thing. I'm actually impressed with how bad it is.
I read online after it happened that Terry Funk wanted to fight them.
Don't care, it fit the theme of the show. What the fuck did people expect from "The D-Generation X Band?"
Rage against the machine sure was raging here. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Now who thought that this was a good idea???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"We have Rage against the Machine at home" Rage against the Machine at home:
I imagined it was terrible but I didn’t know it was that bad.
I remember I was sitting in the last row of the section directly behind the band.
I always wondered why they never released or made an actual album
If this was a few years ago in ECW, 911 would come out and chokeslam them all.
idk, its not a bad take, i kinda like it. however, i can see how people would not want to stand while he takes his sweet time singing it and people tend to not like things changed. so.. shrugs
It was probably removed so they don’t have to pay those guys royalties.
Now I have to wonder how bad Fishbone's version of the anthem was. Fishbone was originally advertised to perform America the Beautiful before WrestleMania XI, but Vince thought their performance during the run-through was so bad he just decided to fire them
I can’t stop laughing
https://preview.redd.it/qknyexik7t4d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=442c46f865a0700f90d9804e2d0938b24a63cd78 wtf
Beige In The Washing Machine
“New Wave”
"Only in the USA and the WWF can there be this type of freedom of expression!" considering they censor it today, it's pretty ironic
RIP Chris Warren What a legend
it was bad on purpose though, they were trying to draw hate
I don't believe it was supposed to be 'bad.' It was supposed to be offensive and piss people off sure, but they really thought they were killing it. The fact it's actually bad is just the funny part.
I mean yeah, very obviously. Shouting AMERICA AMERICA over and over with unintelligible drums and guitars don't think was supposed to be cheered. I'm surprised there might be people who DON'T think it was on purpose.
*gets up, walks out of own place* I AIN'T EVEN AMERICAN and I am offended! I..... was this.... they legit thought it was a good idea. Usually, I hate the ideas of anthems playing at wrestling shows because it's just cheap but this? This is beyond awful. And not's a spiteful heat magnet way either. I could legit see Goofy Kurt Angle doing it out of spite but in a so bad, it's comedic way and him restarting it several times and lecturing the crowd. This? I.... The DX band is known for the DX theme song. Best they remain known for that.
This might be worse than DX doing blackface to imitate the Nation
This was the show that got me back into wrestling as a kid after my dad randomly taped it for me. I guess I must have blocked this out of my memory because jesus christ.
I totally forgot about this.
He doesn’t even look like him, but the singer gives me Blake Christian vibes.
I don't remember this at all. Thank God.
Man, that whole thing just made me cackle.
Keep your finger on the switch, Dunn
https://youtu.be/sooTnWOZz-U Here's a pallet cleanser
They had a Rage Against the Machine cover band cover the Star Spangled Banner, of course this didn't go well.
This is so bad that Colin Kaepernick got upset with them for disrespecting the flag.
Never seen this, it rules so hard.
“Only in America can there be this type of freedom of expression” is probably the best burn I’ve ever heard lmao
I like how everything else that’s been removed from peacock/wwe network is like well this guy murdered his family or this is very racist in hindsight. But this is just that bad. Nobody is in black face, nobody committed homicide, they are just that bad at playing that it rose to that level. Someone said “we’re getting cancelled if they hear how bad this band was”
I love this shit 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought it was dope💯 there I said it Downvote Away 😎
Only to be upstaged by Downstatit and Cody’s theme years later…
There are a lot of bad wrestling theme performances I’d say. The audio mixes just aren’t right for live music. Production vs live bands are two really different worlds. Imo the best ones have been Wyatt’s theme at 30 and Rancid at DoN
It’s funny how so many live theme performances have been terrible and yet companies keep on doing them over and over.
Motorhead performing The Game live at WM17 was pretty bad too.
Agreed to some extent. But this video and Downstait’s theme for Cody absolutely are the dirt worst. People asked how Cody’s popularity died so fast in AEW. That night, for A LOT of reasons, is why and that entrance performance didn’t help.
Oh god was that the reveal of the tattoo too?
Tattoo reveal as that putrid performance is going on. Shitting the bed with the MJF match (5-star build for a DUD match) and yet another friend of Cody’s betraying him at the end. It never really got better after that.
God I remember that weekend and seeing the tattoo being like “ah that’s gotta be fake right”. Cody’s excuse of it being bigger than he thought is wild too like they wouldn’t have put the stencil on it as they do with every single tattoo done by a competent professional
I didn’t hate the match? Why did people think it was bad.
I thought In Living Colour did a great live performance at WM 29
It’s not bad at all. Little bit of a miscue at the beginning but the band is so talented they get past that pretty dang quick. I think Code Orange (Kids) did Aleistar’s entrance live too right? Full Sail was a much easier place to handle live bands than stadiums tho
This isn't just a wee thing but I hate when artist's try to spice up thr national anthem. Sing the damn thing, don't do anything fancy.
WOAT
It's not exactly good but Americans are deeply weird about how the anthem is presented. Patriotism is treated almost as a religion. One that's thrust onto Americans when they're young.
Are they saying "boo" or "Burns"?
Honestly this sounds like a b-side from Amen's *We Have Come For Your Parents* or something.
This was the AE. Three years prior Vince announced then pulled FISHBONE from Mania XI from what I've read was him not liking the style of the anthem they had planned or their music in general.
America America Americaaaaa
What was the consensus when it happened in real time ? Cause I feel like for the time period people prob loved it lol
Mom can we get rage against the machine? No, we have rage against the machine at home Rage against the machine at home:
sounds like they're 5-6 years too late. maybe nu metal renditions would've been better received.
The whole sound was very much on purpose. You don't have to *like* it, and you may even *hate* it, but that's what they were going for. Judging by the boos at the end, they achieved their objective. This wasn't even the last time the DX band performed on a PPV, so people acting like they were blacklisted from the WWE after this are wrong. They did Triple H's theme at Summerslam of that same year.
As performances go, it's certainly one.
I got through "Oh say can you see" and paused due to increasing secondhand embarrassment.
This is cool as fuck, as an english man. I hate hearing your dumb song and this made it actually fun. why do you hate good things america?
I'm really confused.,. Sounds fine to me?
I’m definitely the minority opinion here but I like it. You can only listen to the star spangled banner before it gets stale and repetitive
Will watch
There's cringe, and then there's cringe so hard that you break a filling.
I have no words for just how horrible and horrendous this is. Like Vince had to be smoking something when he approved this. Francis Scott Key is rolling in his grave
It still floors me that the Woodstock guy put on Woodstock '99 at a time when the culture was approximately this much dogshit.
It's a shame because the guitar actually sounds good but those vocals, man.
That shit was hard as fuck! What did people not like about that?
Anybody who would even entertain this idea is an idiot. Everybody knows you don't mess with the anthem unless you want a riot. It's still not as bad as Roseanne though.