Top 5 Most Annoying Sounds In Wrestling

I was watching ECW Heatwave ’98 because it’s Wednesday and I was struck by what I deduced to be the most annoying sound of all-time. It pierced into my skull so fiercely that I had to take an Advil. Mind you, this is a sound I’ve heard a million times before without incident. In fact, I hear it almost daily. My abhorrence to it must have something to do with the fact that I’m almost 35. My threshold for noise is nothing like it used to be. So I’ve decided to ponder over what the most annoying sounds in wrestling are, because this old bastard has nothing but complaints. Also, to help with the writing process, I decided to run Sega The Roomba. There’s no better way to let your annoyances flow than running a vacuum. Actually, there probably are better ways, but fuck you.

5) Ring Announcers That Aren’t Aware Of Their Volume

I’ve been watching a lot of Indie shows lately because a lot of it has been amazing lately. It was probably amazing before, but I know nothing about before, I only know lately, so I can only confidently say that it’s been amazing lately. I can look past the constraints when it comes to production. I can live with fluorescent lighting, choppy streams and grainy video. Hell, I can even tolerate it being out of synch by a few seconds. But the second I hear the microphone start to crackle, my teeth start grinding. Suddenly, an enthusiastic wrestler introduction turns into a messy cloud of feedback and nothing is done to adjust it. And I’m assuming that it doesn’t sound bad inside the venue, as their voice almost always grows louder and more enthusiastic. This isn’t the fault of the announcer. They are all awesome people that deserve all the credit in the world. But somebody really needs to be manning the audio board properly. For reference, I was near one of the board operators at an Indie Show recently. He was watching football the entire time. Do better, guys. You’re going to blow out my shitty speakers.

4) The One Over-Excited Fan At A (Pre-Pandemic) NJPW Show

I don’t have much experience with this annoyance, but whenever I hear it, it ruins the match for me. The prime example is Shinsuke Nakamura vs AJ Styles at Wrestle Kingdom 10. A pivotal match in both of their careers, this marked the end of their New Japan run and the start of their semi-retirement in Connecticut. It’s a brilliant match that surely means a lot to a lot of people. More specifically, it meant a lot to one woman who was sitting close to ringside. Because every 10 seconds, her shrill voice would yell “Shin-skeeeee”. The entire. Fucking. Time. I can tolerate the AAA vuvuzelas in moderation, but a high-pitched voice saying the same thing over and over? I’m muting the TV.

3) The Right To Censor Theme

Although we all felt the warm glow of nostalgia when it played at this year’s Rumble, you can’t deny that the “music” was ratings poison. It’s the aural equivalent of a cold shower. Things are going great, Raven is covered in blood, The Godfather is bringing out his hoes, Terri Runnels is doing a striptease, the Attitude Era is at its apex. Then, out of the blue, everything is drowned out by alarms and sirens. Suddenly, the prospect of puppies and gore are out of the equation and we’re met with a bunch of mormons crashing the party. And when they’re done, the alarms go off again. As a kid, it definitely caused a bunch of “what the hell are you watching” shouts from down the hallway. And the answer? Nothing good…anymore.

2) The Incessant Bell Ring During A Post-Match Scrum

This mostly became an issue when I was watching every Nitro in order at 3 in the morning. Nearly every match in that era ended in a disqualification and instead of letting the attack happen, the timekeeper would just ring the bell over and over and over and over and over and over. Do they really think that the wrestlers are going to stop? Like they’ll say, “Sorry, chief. We didn’t hear it the first 30 times”. It’s almost as if they want Rachel to wake up. And you know what? They succeeded. Every single night.

1) Bill Alfonso’s Whistle

Rob Van Dam is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. In fact, he might just be my absolute favorite. The only problem is, a lot of his best matches are nearly unwatchable. That’s because his manager, Bill Alfonso, would blow his referee whistle the entire time. He doesn’t lose a beat, he’s just always blowing the whistle. I don’t understand why nothing was ever done about it (that I know of). A whole catalog of classic matches have been ruined because of one man’s gimmick of blowing a whistle. I don’t even know why they gave him a whistle. None of it made any sense. The is the worst sound in wrestling solely because it accompanied the best wrestler through his prime years. Which is completely unforgivable.

I realize this list is incomplete. Also, I’m in the minority of people that don’t hate Perry Saturn’s WCW theme. I think the sirens accentuate his persona. Also, the Roomba has finished, I’m no longer annoyed and the last thing I want to do is annoy myself further. Join me next week when I talk about food in wrestling.

– TeeCoZee