Performing live at a WWE event can be a once in a lifetime chance to perform to a packed arena, and a blistering performance can boost any band's profile. From smaller acts desperate for the limelight to multi-platinum megastars, WWE has had plenty of both throughout the years.
Though the exposure can be valuable to an act, a sub-par performance can turn the crowd against them. There is nothing worse for a performer than being totally ignored, and the wrestling audience generally does not welcome these musical intrusions in their show. We take a look at acts that succeeded in turning the crowd's heads, and those who shouldn't have bothered turning up.
10 Rocked - Living Color
The legendary Living Color played CM Punk to the ring at Wrestlemania 29 in their hometown of New York. Punk had been using their 1988 hit "Cult Of Personality" since 2011 when it replaced Killswitch Engage's "This Fire Burns," and the iconic static noise bursts followed by that iconic riff became synonymous with Punk's best years. At 'Mania Living Color sounded huge, the sound quality adding to their assured and flawless performance. Total pros having a blast in front of a huge and appreciative audience, this should be the goal for all acts playing at WWE events.
9 Bombed - Fozzy
Chris Jericho's Fozzy 'treated' a Raw audience to a live performance in 2002, but we're not sure what the desired outcome was supposed to be. Firstly, Jericho was a heel at the time and berated the crowd after they raucously booed their first number 'To Kill A Stranger".
Secondly, Jerry Lawler kept yelling over the music from the commentary booth "They're huge rock stars! They're like the Rolling Stones!" In their defense, the band played well but by cockily playing the sort of metal that was at least 15 years out of style by this point meant that they were always fighting a losing battle. The crowd hated it and went nuts when a crazed Ric Flair turned up to smash up the stage.
8 Rocked - RUN DMC
A rare case of the audience being generally apathetic to the act but it still being pretty awesome, Run-DMC performed the imaginatively titled "A Wrestlemania Rap" at Wrestlemania V in 1989.
True, the Atlantic City crowd didn't seem to care much at the time, but watching this now is a real treat. The old school WWF ring, the Howard Finkel introduction, and the uber-cool rap trio at the top of their game make this a really fun nostalgia trip.
7 Bombed - Drowning Pool
Every knows Drowning Pool's dumb fun hit "Bodies", but for some reason, they elected to play the insipid "Tear Away" at Wrestlemania X8 in 2002. The enormous SkyDome in Toronto and the spectacle that is 'Mania was no place for this self-pitying testament to all that was wrong with 'nu-metal.'
At one point vocalist Dave Williams asks the crowd to scream. They do not comply. The band continue their bombing later in the show by performing an almost unrecognizable cover of Motorhead's "The Game" for HHH's entrance to no reaction from the crowd for anything except HHH himself.
6 Rocked - Code Orange And Incendiary
At NXT's Takeover Brooklyn III in 2017 Aleister Black was played to the ring by the white-hot Code Orange, with Incediary's frontman Brendan Garrone handling the vocal duties. Black's entrance music "Fade To Black" is an absolute banger to begin with, but seeing Code Orange and Garrone tear into it live was something else.
The band look stoked to be there and play tightly despite rocking out so hard you wonder how they could manage both at the same time. Granted, NXT audiences are a little more forgiving than the usual WWE crowd, but this would have worked at any show at any time and the Brooklyn fans lapped it up.
5 Bombed - Kid Rock
There's nothing really wrong with WWE Hall Of Famer Kid Rock's performance at Wrestlemania 25 if you like that sort of thing. The sound quality is good, the band plays well, Kid sings well, it's just that no-one in the stadium cares.
The set is also ten minutes long as Rock plays a medley of his 'hits' to a disinterested, bored crowd. At one point there is a short gap in the music clearly designed to be filled with a huge cheer when the moment comes the silence is filled with more silence. Despite Kid and his band desperately trying to get a reaction from the fans they are met with apathy time after time.
4 Rocked - Motorhead
Motorhead played HHH to the ring at both Wrestlemania X-7 and Wrestlemania XXI, but we think the latter is the superior performance mostly because Lemmy actually remembers the words to "The Game" in 2005.
The X-7 performance, though still awesome, felt a little ramshackle as though Motorhead didn't realize they were meant to be playing at all. Motorhead had two things in their favor in front of a WWE crowd; the fans knew and loved the song already, and they are Motorhead.
3 Bombed - Machine Gun Kelly
At Wrestlemania 28 Machine Gun Kelly strolled onto the stage and was greeted with a chorus of loud boos. The eminently unlikable rapper then performed to zero reaction despite constantly yelling at the fans to "put their hands up" which of course they didn't.
Kelly then made matters worse by claiming the both he and John Cena were underdogs. Yes, you read that right. Then he took a shot at The Rock and at the end of the song the Miami crowd hated him. Why WWE thought The Rock would be the heel in his hometown, and that MGK and John Cena would be in any way sympathetic remains a mystery.
2 Rocked - Limp Bizkit
It's easy to hate on 'The WWE's Favorite Band', but it's also easy to forget that in 2003 Limp Bizkit were actually quite good. Alright, they'll never be The Beatles, but their bouncy nu-metal was fun for a while. Back in the days when a song called "Crack Addict" was deemed acceptable for WWE audiences, Limp Bizkit - with a little help from Korn's Head - performed the song as well as playing The Undertaker down to the ring with "Rollin'" at Wrestlemania XIX.
The less said about Taker's match the better, but Durst genuinely had the crowd with him throughout both performances leading up to it, for which he deserves a lot of credit.
1 Bombed - The DX Band/ The Chris Warren Band
But wait, you may be thinking, didn't The DX Band rock the house when they played "Are You Ready?" for DX's entrance? Well yes they did, but what you may not know is that they performed "America The Beautiful" at the top of the show - a performance so dire it has been removed from WWE's history books.
Basically screaming the words over a slightly re-worked version of "Are You Ready?" like a generic and patriotic Rage Against The Machine, the fans at the FleetCenter In Boston loathed it and drowned the band out with thunderous boos.