OH NOOOOOOO. OH NO.
OH NO!
Oh yes, it is true! Kassius Ohno (né Chris Hero) has officially returned to NXT TV, and it looks like he'll be the next foil for NXT Champion Bobby Roode. He returns to NXT with an additional four years of seasoning in the indys on his belt, along with a brand new theme song, which is a significant upgrade from this ditty he used during his first tenure at Full Sail:
"Flatlined," the song Ohno originally used, sounds a lot like the punk rock songs you'd bob your head along to in the mid-to-late 2000s. Or it could have been in your workout playlist so you'd have an excuse to play it as anything more than a guilty pleasure. Or, fine, a kinder assessment would have been that it sounded like a poor man's Anberlin or Taking Back Sunday. As much as we loved those bands a good decade ago, that's pretty much how their sound resonates today.
Thankfully, Ohno doesn't have to use that song anymore because he now has a new track called "Hero's Welcome."
First off, the hook's great. What's not to love? It's catchy—because DUH it starts with his name, which is also shorthand for OH NO, YOU'RE GOING TO GET YOUR HEAD ELBOWED IN—easy to sing along to, and immediately associated with the wrestler who comes out to the theme.
When the beat drops, you actually get a better version of the beat from Apollo Crews' theme because it's got more bombast and angas than "Cruise Control." Cody B. Ware—which at this point, I am undecided on whether it's a great name or just a bad play off of the biggest jabroni in the WWE Hall of Fame—then comes in sounding like Macklemore, which would've been great, except Macklemore peaked in the mainstream FOUR YEARS AGO.
The good people over at Cageside Seats transcribed the lyrics of the song, which I've pasted here so you can check out Cody B. Ware's rhymes:
About me
betta watch how you speak
The Greatest of All Time
Baby Ali
I'll surpass y'all
Go the distance? Ya'll won't last nah
Smash with the elbow
Cracking ya glass jaw
You better knuckle up
Dream crusha
coming out swingin
Open you up yeah your luck is up
Cover up I ain't nothing to mess with
Hear em scream oh no cause I'm blessed kid
The Knockout Artist, hard to hit
I get a Hero's Welcome you get a nod, that's it
It's obvious you not that fit to rock with this
Givin' it all you got but you not that sick
I'll leave you out cold
Now you panickin' frantic from the attack
It's embarrassing now they all know
Cover up I ain't nothing to mess withLyrically, you have to hand it to Mr. Ware for the blatant references to Ohno and how he wrestles. That's way more than we get from most wrestling themes these days. From Ohno's elbow, to calling him a "Knockout Artist," to "Hero's welcome," which is a great nod to his indy ring name, the theme can actually go toe-to-toe with Andrade "Cien" Almas' in terms of easter eggs hidden within the song.
Hear em scream oh no cause I'm blessed kid
As for the rapping itself, it's nothing to write home about. He doesn't really split bars the way Macklemore does. The rhyming scheme tends to be lazy, especially when he rhymes "up" with "up" thrice in the first verse. He kind of makes up for it in the second verse when he's able to use the third bar to flow through the line effortlessly, using the "-ck" sounds from "panickin' frantic" and "attack" as stopgaps within the bar, before wrapping it up by bookending the long "o" rhyme between "cold" and "know."
All that said, "Hero's Welcome" is a great change of pace from the generic-sounding themes CFO$ is notorious for pumping out on a regular basis. It's a great way to reintroduce Kassius Ohno to both existing and new fans on NXT, and it's actually a fun listen. If this is a song you'd want to include in your workout playlist, then by all means, put it on and play it during leg day. I'll be damned if it doesn't motivate you to finish those lunges. OH NO!
Photo from WWE
*****
Stan Sy (@_StanSy) is the Editor at Large of Smark Henry, and is also an events host, a freelance writer, and one of the hosts of the Smark Gilas-Pilipinas Podcast and The Wrestling Gods on FOX. He enjoys watching WWE, NXT, Lucha Underground, and the occasional New Japan match. He dresses up in fancy suits from time to time to book matches as PWR's General Manager.
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