Pull up a barstool, grab a cold pint of cheap domestic light beer, and let’s talk about the absolute circus that has become the combat sports entrance. If you spent any time on the forums this week, you saw the internet tearing itself apart over whether walkouts are still cool or just a giant waste of time. The spark that lit this particular powder keg was a recent piece on BodySlam.net detailing the history of the walkout.
The writer of that piece argued that a walkout is the ultimate pre-fight weapon. Here is what they wrote about the power of the entrance:
Before a punch lands, the room has already picked a side. A walkout gives a fighter ninety seconds to look larger than life, calm a shaking corner, and make a rival wait under hot lights.
But the internet took that ninety-second estimate and laughed it out of the room. Roman Reigns takes longer than that just to raise his right hand. Cody Rhodes has a pyro budget that could fund a small country, and he uses all of it before he even walks down the ramp.
Give Them the Pyro and the Lasers
The debate immediately split into three distinct camps. The theatrical enthusiasts want every wrestler to have a live band and a laser show. Meanwhile, the workrate purists want the bell to ring immediately, while the contrarians think the best entrance is dead silence.
Let's start with the theatrical crew. These are the fans who think Wrestlemania is a concert first and a wrestling show second. They believe the entrance is fifty percent of the gimmick, and if you don't have a catchy theme song for the crowd to sing along to, you might as well not exist.
One Reddit user under the name PyroManiac99 posted a detailed breakdown of Cody Rhodes' entrance at a show last month. They pointed out that the crowd shouting WOAH at the exact moment the fireworks go off is the loudest pop of the entire night. For these fans, that initial surge of adrenaline is worth the ticket price alone.
They also point to the legendary status of the Undertaker, whose slow walk to the ring is one of the greatest spectacles in television history. Cutting his entrance down to ninety seconds would destroy the entire mystique of the character. The entrance is the match before the match.
Get in the Ring Already
But then you have the skeptics, and they have some serious ammunition. These are the folks who actually want to watch people wrestle. They are tired of watching a guy walk in slow motion while a full orchestral choir sings about his family tree.
A user named RingBellNow complained on the forums that Roman Reigns' entrance has officially ruined the pacing of Friday night television. They calculated that during a recent broadcast, Reigns took a whopping six minutes and forty seconds to get from the Gorilla position to the center of the ring. That is almost seven minutes of television time where absolutely nothing happens.
It is hard to argue with that math. Losing seven minutes on a two-hour show is a massive waste of time that could be spent on a midcard title match. Instead, we watch a man stare at the crowd while his music loops for the fourth time.
This issue is not just limited to pro wrestling either. When Israel Adesanya did his famous Undertaker walkout at UFC 276, the live crowd in Las Vegas actually started booing. The entrance took longer than some of the fights on the preliminary card.
The Art of Silence and Sweaters
Then we have the contrarians. These are the hipsters of the wrestling world who think less is always more. They argue that the greatest entrances are the ones that completely strip away the theater.
A forum poster named SilentButDeadly argued that Tommaso Ciampa's run in NXT proved that silence is the ultimate heat generator. When Ciampa walked out to absolute silence, with no theme music at all, the crowd was forced to generate their own noise. The result was a deafening wall of pure hatred that no theme song could ever replicate.
The contrarians also love to bring up Fedor Emelianenko's legendary walkouts in PRIDE. Fedor did not need lasers, smoke, or a live band; he walked to the ring wearing a simple, slightly faded sweater. He looked like a guy heading to the local hardware store to buy some nails, not a heavyweight champion about to destroy another human being.
The Verdict on the Walkout
So, who is right? Which side of this internet flame war actually makes sense? Let's break it down.
The theatrical fans have a point about star power because a great entrance builds anticipation. It makes the fighter look like a superhero or a villain. When Goldberg walked through the sparks with security guards surrounding him, you knew you were about to watch a train wreck.
But the skeptics are right about the bloat. Pro wrestling has developed a severe pacing problem because when every single wrestler on the card has a theatrical entrance, none of them feel special. It becomes a repetitive cycle of pyro, posing, and time-wasting.
The sweet spot lies in moderation. An elaborate walkout should be reserved for the main event or special occasions, whereas when every midcard tag team gets a five-minute entrance, it devalues the concept. It makes the actual matches feel like an afterthought.
Let's look at the statistics of a typical television broadcast. On a recent episode of Monday Night Raw, the total in-ring action amounted to only thirty-four minutes of a three-hour show. The rest of the time was filled with commercials, promos, and, you guessed it, endless entrances. That is a terrible ratio for a show that is supposedly about wrestling.
My verdict is that the skeptics have the stronger argument here. The walkout has become a self-indulgent crutch for talent who cannot get over in the ring, as discussed in the walkout history report. If you need ten minutes of pyro and a live band to make the crowd care about you, you are doing something wrong.
Look at the legends of the past. Stone Cold Steve Austin did not need a six-minute walk; the glass shattered, he marched down the ramp like he was going to start a bar fight, and he got straight to work. The entire entrance took less than a minute, and it is still the most iconic walkout in the history of the business.
We need to get back to that level of efficiency. Keep the walkouts short, punchy, and intense. Let the action in the ring do the talking, not the pyro budget.
