Watch WWE wrestler Damian Priest debut new entrance music featuring Slayer guitarist Kerry King

Damian Priest and Kerry King in 2024
(Image credit: WWE/Getty Images | Andy Stuart)

WWE wrestler Damian Priest has given his entrance song a refresh with the help of Slayer’s Kerry King.

King plays guitar on Priest’s new theme, which debuted on Monday (November 11) during WWE’s weekly Raw broadcast. The axeman confirmed his involvement in the new tune via X (formerly Twitter) yesterday (November 14). Have a listen below.

Priest signed with WWE in 2018 and is a former United States Champion. At the 40th edition of Wrestlemania, the company’s flagship event, in April, the wrestler became the company’s first Puerto Rican-born World Heavyweight Champion in 50 years. He held the title for four months before losing it to Gunther at Summerslam. Priest gets his rematch at the Survivor Series: Wargames event on Saturday, November 30.

King’s involvement with WWE adds to what’s been an incredibly busy 2024 for the gauntlet-wielding guitar hero. In February, he released his first solo music and announced his debut solo album, From Hell I Rise, would drop in May.

Just days later, Slayer shockingly announced their return, having previously retired in November 2019. The band played their comeback show at Riot Fest in Chicago in September, then a second set at Aftershock festival in Sacramento the following month. A planned Louder Than Life festival performance was cancelled due to dangerous weather, but the thrash legends will headline the event in 2025.

In between all of that, King also declared his intention to record a second solo album this year. He told The Aquarian in May, “I said to Paul [Bostaph, drums], ‘I want to go immediately into the studio and bang out record two [after King’s 2024 solo tour wraps up]. When you’re fresh off the tour and sharp, you can do a super quick performance because we’ll all be rehearsed on it. That’s the plan.’”

King hasn’t performed on a theme song for a WWE wrestler before. However, Slayer originally recorded the God Hates Us All track Here Comes The Pain for a compilation album by now-defunct promotion WCW in 1999.

Furthermore, WWE has licensed Slayer’s music in the past. At Wrestlemania 39 in 2023, it used the band’s 1988 song South Of Heaven as a one-off entrance theme for veteran wrestler Edge.

Priest explained his deep-rooted passion for metal in a Metal Hammer interview in April. “I would say that Metallica and Ozzy were my first [bands] where I was like, ‘Oh, I love this,’” he said. “That’s what really got me hooked on heavy metal.”

Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.