WWE Network: Lynch reviews WWE Countdown - Top 10 Entrances

Thomas Lynch is a longtime fan and a Prowrestling.net Member who is delivering voluntary reviews of the WWE Countdown show. He welcomes feedback and conversation on my twitter over @BoxieNigma.  

Another week, another countdown…this time on the WWE Network, Countdown profiled the 10 greatest entrances of all time. I have to be honest, when I first heard the topic this week, I wondered if an hour about entrances was going to drag on. Thankfully, I was once again pleasantly surprised by the uniqueness of the show and by what a great time the superstars, legends and divas, looked to have had debating over the top entrances of all time. I was also glad to see some superstars get their just due voted into the countdown by the fans, and that it wasn’t the same superstars as the week before, at least not entirely. Let’s get right into the countdown!

The show started this week with the same format as last, a ridiculous montage of the entire top 10 of entrances that spoils the show you’re about to watch for you to kick the show off. The show then featured the similar talking head format mixing interviews of today with the clips of the superstar and their entrance profiled. As a follow up from last week, Edge confirmed on his twitter this week, that most of the interviews showed on Countdown were recorded about 2-3 years ago. Thus, many of the superstars listed as "former superstars," worked for WWE as the interviews were shot. 

In any event, before we get into the top ten, some of the better entrances that didn’t make the top ten are profiled. Sheamus, Dave Batista, HBK, The Rock and John Cena are all featured here. I had to figure that WWE couldn’t have been happy Cena didn’t make it to the top 10 with how hard they’ve tried to make his Wrestlemania entrances memorable through the years. 

10. The Sandman: What a pleasant surprise to see ECW original the Sandman profiled here. I personally remember episodes of ECW television at 2 am and half of the show would be a Sandman entrance. While of the superstars praised the Sandman for his entrance, saying all you needed was a pack of cigarettes and a six pack of beer, the superstars immediately turned on Sandman from there. Daniel Bryan mentioned how Sandman was a great entrance and that was it, stating that he was horrible in the ring. They then showed a package of Sandman botching a bunch of moves as the superstars claimed that he usually wrestled drunk. Joey Styles ended by mentioning how Sandman was a construction worker who loved a good bar room brawl before he got into wrestling and the last time Joey planned on seeing Sandman, he cancelled saying he got arrested for drunk and disorderly. Ouch!

9. Goldust: Another pleasant surprise to kick off the countdown, the Bizarre One makes the list. This was a really fun package that profiled the Goldust character at its start as the innovative, mind games playing guy on his way to the top of the card in WWE. They show some of Goldust’s vignettes before coming to the company and, of course, the old film view of Goldust as he entered the ring with gold pouring out of the rafters. They even show some footage of Goldust getting very close and creepy to Vince McMahon, back in his announcing days. The highlight here was an awkward clip of Daniel Bryan saying " I used to enjoy Goldust’s entrance because he had Marlena and she had a great set of cans." This leads to a funny segue way to the Bellas, Daniel Bryan is engaged to Brie Bella, who look appalled by Bryan’s remark. 

8. Ultimate Warrior: Another case of an entrance making a superstar. Cmon who hasn’t ran around there house with the familiar crazy guitar theme echoing throughout their house? Here different clips of the Warrior are shown with the Ultimate Warrior running to and around the ring at full speed. They even show something cool here in which Warrior is shown running from the locker and runs into and past Vince McMahon who just so happens to be in the back. What I found interesting here, is that while you had a host of Superstars imitating Warrior and mentioning how quick his matches were, you didn’t hear the mockery and burial of UW that you did in "The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" DVD. I don’t know this factually, but you have to figure that when UW is your upcoming hall of fame headliner, it’s a good idea to present him as a big deal, which is probably when the imitations were almost done in tribute this time.

Here we have a short break in which entrance robes are profiled. Everyone from Ric Flair to Greg Valentine to Daniel Bryan is profiled here. They show clips of when Flair mentioned how each robe cost $15,000 and he had about fifteen. The superstars mentioned, how while robes are mostly a thing of the past, they should return as it allows for the superstar to be seen as a big deal. The piece ended with Damien Sandow mentioning that, as the intellectual savior, his robe doesn’t need all of the glitz and glamour as the robes of the past. The piece was fine, however, I would have preferred a piece on pyro and the different roles pyro played in enhancing entrances. I mean everyone from Randy Orton to Chyna to freakin Max Moon utilized pyro so that would have been a cool feature. Back to the countdown…

7. Chris Jericho: Y2J is profiled here and they do a nice package interspersing all of his different countdown clocks through the different phases of his career. Jericho, himself, breaks down the history behind his original "Countdown to the Millenium clock." He mentioned how he saw it in a post office and thought it would be a cool way for him to enter WWE. From here, they showed pieces of Jericho acting like the cocky rockstar back in WCW all the way up to his time returning to the company and doing the over the top smiling and celebrating until he would return to the back while turning heel by showing how he can turn the crowd into his puppets, The piece ended with a funny bit of Jericho questioning the lyrics to his own theme song as they are flashed up on the screen. To me, I would have liked a little more on Jericho’s impressive light-up jackets because they were always impressive and really added to the "Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah" character.

6. Rey Mysterio: Great piece here on Rey as they showed a backstage bit of Rey preparing for his old school entrance popping up through the stage. This may have been from his DVD but, Rey explains, pre match, how exciting it is for him to perform the entrance and they show him getting counted down by a stagehand. All of this is shown from under the stage, I really suggest checking this part of this week’s show out. The piece then turned to pushing Rey’s connection with the crowd in Rey giving his mask to the kids while offering them words of encouragement. I liked this because it was a reminder of the larger then life, superhero like persona Rey once had before injuries got the best of him. What I didn’t like was that there was no footage of Jericho posing as a fan and attacking Rey. This was a little disappointing as I thought it was such a unique way for them to further their feud at the time and it played into Rey’s entrance.

5. Triple H: This piece kicked off with Triple H going through the importance of an entrance and how not enough talents make that first impression. The talents all talk about how original the entrances are with John Cena and Cody Rhodes talking about the importance of lighting to his entrance. Daniel Bryan added that Triple H "made a bottle H20 cool." A funny tidbit is that they show the time Michael Cole did the complete Triple H entrance. In the end Stephanie McMahon mentions how "from the first cord and the first screech of Lemi (lead singer of Motorhead, who performs Triple H’s themes) you know a badass is coming." Nice of her to say that about her husband. 

I loved that they showed the entrance from Wrestlemania 27 in Atlanta, I was in attendance and that was awesome from the Metallica to the sledge hammer through the glass. I would have also like to see a little bit about the "Greenwich Blueblood" character. I thought from the costume to the obnoxious bow, that entrance really added to Hunter’s Blueblood persona. 

4. Goldberg: Surprised to see Goldberg on this countdown and especially so high on the list. However, looking back, he really did have a pretty crazy entrance. Billy Kidman said it best when he mentioned how his entrance was so different in that it showed him from the back and being led to the ring by security. They talk about how Goldberg used to stand there as the pyro went off on him while he inhaled the pyro smoke and blew it out through his nose. From here the piece shifts to a couple of different mockeries of Goldberg, namely from Chris Jericho in WCW with his personal security being unable to find his way to the ring and, of course, Gillberg. Gillberg is actually introduced by Ryback who mentioned how Gillberg was "WWE’s version of Goldberg" (little ironic there). CM Punk ended the piece saying "What made Gillberg so great was that because Bill couldn’t take a joke, he hated Gillberg so much."

Above and Beyond: They cleared things up for us a bit this week by explaining that the "Above and Beyond" category were the entrances that just missed the top ten but that still deserved an honorable mention. The three here that were mentioned were Kane, The Brood and Eddie Guerrero. I'll say these were definitely three that deserved a mention, especially the brood with the rising from the fire and the creepy music. Roman Reigns was great here stating that no one knew for sure what was in the flask, but you knew it had to be blood. Kane's piece is based off of his old entrance where the lights would go red and the start of his music would flare before the four ring posts would explode with fire. As for Eddie, the piece focused on his days coming to the ring in a low rider during his run as Latino Heat. You could really tell from the comments how much the superstars respected Eddie and how much he is missed today. JBL really spoke highly of Eddie here, and with good reason, as Eddie was instrumental in getting JBL the push of his career.
 
3. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: The Texas Rattlesnake makes an appearance here. They show a variety of clips of Austin driving different vehicles to the ring including the beer truck, the zamboni, the cement truck, the monster truck, and the truck that he used when battling the nation. As for his every day entrance, they show the classic Austin walk with the superstars commenting that when you saw Austin coming to the ring you knew he meant business and wasn't coming to mess around.

Nice to take a trip down memory lane here and relive all of the crazy vehicles Austin drove to the ring but other than the few occasions, in which they had actual glass breaking, there wasn't much Austin's entrance did for me. This is the one where the WWE universe missed the boat in my opinion when you consider his usual entrance was a bit ordinary.
 
2. Degeneration-X: To me the question was always who would end up getting number two on the list and it's DX! The piece starts with the classic DX music video playing and then it being interspersed with a number of DX's best entrances. They include everything from the road Dogg's "Ladies and Gentleman..." to Triple H's "Are You Ready?."..What I really liked here was that they showed interviews conducted with every single member of DX, not named Chyna, so it was good to get all of their insights. They also showed the famous DX return from Summerslam 2009 where they came to the ring on a canon. Ted Dibiase Jr mentioned how he turned to Cody and was stunned saying "Is really happening?" Triple H also mentioned how nobody can make light sticks cool but DX did and every single fan bought them.
 
1. The Undertaker: There really couldn't be anyone else for this spot when you consider how many years Undertaker has been around and how many times he’s changed and adapted his entrance/persona. Although it wasn’t shown in the piece, presumably for continuity purposes, even as the American Badass, Taker had a great entrance when he used to come in on the motorcycle. I remember WrestleMania 19, in particular, when Taker rode the motorcycle down the long ramp with the American flag draped across his back as Limp Bizkit played him to the ring. That was really cool, Fred Durst notwithstanding.

Anyway, the highlight of this piece was the vast number of entrances that they really captured in such a short time. They showed The Undertaker’s Wrestlemania 9 entrance when he came out on the float with the black crow by his side, they showed him coming out of the rafters during one of his returns in the attitude era with the bat wings and also when the lightning bolt came down and struck a casket that he emerged from during the Survivor Series 2005, I believe. Mick Foley, one of the Undertaker’s greatest challengers through the years, was the highlight of the piece. He mentioned that no matter how many times he would face The Undertaker, once that gong hit and the lights would go out, he and Paul Bearer would look at each other and show each other that the airs on their arms were standing. This was just a cool ending and tribute piece to the Deadman. The only thing that was missing, for me at least, were the druids who played an integral role in the Undertaker’s supernatural persona. Then again, they aren’t very PG. 

That’s going to do it for the second episode of WWE Countdown on the WWE Network. I will be back next week to look at WWE Countdown- Greatest Finishing Moves.