Starting in September 2004, SmackDown! used the Drowning Pool song “Rise Up” as the intro to each episode along with a highlight video of the Blue Brand’s biggest stars. The song would remain apart of the show in some form or fashion up through September 2008, making it synonymous with the some show’s biggest stars like Rey Mysterio, Batista and The Undertaker.
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While the WWE has gone through 10 different intro songs since then, none of them have stuck in fans’ minds like “Rise Up.” And since WWE has stopped playing intro videos at the start of each episode, one fan decided to keep the video alive. On April 24 the YouTube profile “DashingRKO619” uploaded a remake of the video, adding in stars from the current SmackDown Live roster. By Tuesday the video began to go viral on Reddit with more than 20,000 views.
The video kicks off with shots of Roman Reigns before cutting to various other stars including Randy Orton, Finn Balor, Ember Moon, Charlotte Flair and Jeff Hardy. The intro traditionally ended with the current world champion, and the new video kept that going by closing out with Kofi Kingston hoisting the WWE Championship.
In recent years WWE has overhauled its music department, as Jim Johnston was removed as the company’s composer and replaced by the production duo CFO$. In an interview back in March, Johnston revealed he was “pushed” out of the company despite making most of its iconic entrance themes. He is credited as one of the song writers for “Rise Up.”
“I was getting cut out,” Johnston said. “That was by design. Not necessarily Vince’s (McMahon’s) design, but other folks. It’s his company, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. It isn’t like he owes me a job. I knew this was coming to an end and particularly maybe for the last year, I knew the writing was on the wall.
“This guy has pushed me out, but you know I was so discouraged by it all and I wasn’t doing what I want to do, which is to write great music and I am a worker,” he continued. “I don’t want a job where I don’t have to work. There wasn’t ever a millisecond where I thought, ‘Wow, isn’t this great? I’m really not doing that much music, but they’re continuing to pay me! Oh my God, what a great deal!’ It was awful. I hate that. I hated that feeling. I’ve got handcuffs on, I can’t contribute and I eventually told Vince that as well. I said, ‘this is not right.’ I also told him at the time, ‘hey, if you’re unhappy with me, fire me. Fire me right now. You can fire me right now. I’m taking the pressure off. Go ahead. Fire me.”
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