AEW Collision is a new weekly wrestling show from All Elite Wrestling that debuts this Saturday, June 17, at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT. Today it’s been revealed that the show’s theme song is an Elton John classic from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting.” Watch the show’s new opening credits sequence below.
In the current televised wrestling landscape, John’s 1973 song is a tonal anomaly in a sea of nu-metal, rap rock, and hip-hop songs. Not every weekly wrestling show consistently opens with music—none of WWE’s shows aired in the past week featured an opening credits theme sequence. The big three WWE shows have kicked off in recent years with songs by Slipknot, Poppy, Christian rapper NF, and Vince McMahon favorites AC/DC; the current listed WWE NXT theme is a generic rock instrumental called “Shredder.” AEW’s other theme songs, for Wednesday’s Dynamite and Friday’s Rampage, are originals that underline the show’s titles (“This is Rampage, baby;” “Light the fuse, bring the boom: Dynamite”).
As a four-year-old wrestling company, AEW has differentiated itself from other promotions by licensing popular songs for wrestlers’ entrance themes. Any given episode features Jefferson Starship’s “Jane” (Orange Cassidy), Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son” (the Elite), X’s version of “Wild Thing” (Jon Moxley), Action Bronson’s “The Chairman’s Intent” (Hook), and more. The show has frequently welcomed musical guests, including wrestling fanatic Westside Gunn.
“Elton John’s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ is the perfect song to kick off the return of Saturday night wrestling to a Turner network for the first time in over 20 years,” Tony Khan—AEW’s CEO, general manager, and head of creative—said in a statement. “With the song’s iconic opening guitar riff and nostalgic wrestling energy, it was my top choice to lead in Collision. It’s the ultimate intro to the exciting storylines and hard-hitting wrestling action that Collision will deliver to fans on TNT every Saturday night!”
Collision is a Saturday night wrestling series whose debut promises the return of several wrestlers from injury or hiatus, including Miro, Andrade El Idolo, and most notably, CM Punk. Punk (whose entrance theme has been Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” in AEW, WWE, and UFC) has been away from wrestling following an injury and reported backstage fight in September.
Pitchfork has reached out to Elton John’s representatives for comment.