Wild Thing is a hit song by The Troggs in 1965. Before Moxley, Atsushi Onita, a Japanese deathmatch legend, used to come out to it.
Onita’s Tokyo Dome entrance, before his match against Masahiro Chono, is one of the coolest entrances ever, where the bloodthirsty crowd threw garbage at him and an unfazed Onita just took it all in, sitting in a chair and lighting a cigarette.
Tony Khan initially pitched the idea of using the song for Moxley during Exploding Barbed Wire DeathMatch, but Moxley rejected it. Moxley later changed his mind, but it was too late then.
Moxley: “So we’re doing this Exploding Barbed Wire match And I was being compared to the innovator of that, who’s called Atsushi Onita, who’s a Japanese wrestler who came out to that song.
A month before Tony was like, we’re talking about it and Tony goes ‘should we get Wild Thing for that?’ Just for one night for the Exploding Match. And I was like ‘no that’s too derivative. No it’s too much.’ And then a week before I started thinking about it again and I was like ‘well it might be cool for one night. People might get the reference. Just for that one night I was like ‘let’s do it.’ By then, it was too late and we couldn’t get the rights for it or whatever.”
Moxley finally came out to the song before his match against Yuji Nagata, and Moxley was actually unaware of it. This was also the first and last time they played Troggs version as they switched to “X” version thereafter.
Moxley: “I was in the ring with Yuji Nagata, and I thought it was the ‘Season of the Witch’ playing. I was like ‘why is Season of the Witch playing right now?’ And after the match, I heard it was like the original, the Troggs Wild Thing. I was like ‘oh, they must’ve got Wild Thing after all. That’s my music now.’ And they then changed it to the X version, the Major League version. So it kind of just happened by accident. But if the people like it, I like it. So that’s all that matters. I’m into it, it’s cool.”