Examining Hip-Hop's Enduring Fascination with Pro Wrestling

Hip-hop has longed loved pro wrestling, perhaps in part because when rappers watch the larger-than-life characters in the ring, it's like looking at themselves in the mirror.

As disparate as those two worlds are, they are also parallel in many ways. Bombastic trash-talkers exist in both the rap game and the squared circle. Hip-hop and wrestling both revolve around loud, colorful personalities who build their identities around bravado.

It's not surprising, then, to see so many instances where rappers reference WWE, WCW and the wrestling industry as a whole.

The current beef between Meek Mill and Drake feels a lot like a wrestling feud, with each man trading shots and questioning the other's manhood. The rappers' animosity borrowing overtly from the WWE playbook should have been expected. Meek penned an anti-Drake anthem entitled "Wanna Know" and chose to back it with a track that samples The Undertaker's entrance music.

WWE is reportedly not happy with Meek's choice of the sample. A company spokesperson told TMZ that "WWE takes its intellectual property rights very seriously, and we're looking into the matter."

This is far from the first time a hip-hop artist has chosen to pluck something from wrestling. Rappers from Nas to Lil' Wayne to Pusha T to Rick Ross have all fired off rhymes about the spandex circus.

And why not? The over-the-top personalities that occupy sports entertainment must have a natural appeal to rappers. Onscreen at least, many of them seem to live what is the stereotypical rapper's lifestyle.

Ric Flair wore fine watches and expensive shoes, drove around in top-notch cars and usually had a woman under each arm. He bragged about it all, too. It's no wonder, then, that The Nature Boy has been referenced so often in rap.

In 2006, Cam'ron penned a song called "Ric Flair" in which he rapped, "Get it clear. If you want it, we get it there. I need six more pairs, I'm like 'Woo!' Ric Flair." Killer Mike's 2011 album PL3DGE features a song named after the former world champ as well. 

Pusha T took the adulation for wrestling's playboy even further. In "What Dreams Are Made Of," he sampled one of Flair's most famous promos. Before the rapper puts his stamp on the song, Flair says, "You talking to the Rolex-wearing, diamond ring-wearing, kiss-stealing, wheeling-dealing..."

The rapper told Hot 97's Peter Rosenberg that he's a "Ric Flair aficionado."

(Warning: Video contains NSFW language.)

It's easy to imagine The Four Horsemen, Evolution and Ted DiBiase appealing to the same rappers who look up to Al Pacino's Tony Montana. These were cool dudes who kicked ass when need be.  

And in a genre of music that so often talks about coming after someone, what better place to draw inspiration from than wrestling?

Whether they mean it literally or figuratively, rappers have constantly threatened to take down a certain rapper or go on the attack toward another. So seeing wrestlers' names creep into these lines should be expected. The bulk of pro wrestling storylines has this type of mindset.

In Wu Tang Clan's "It's Yourz," RZA promised to stomp someone like Wahoo McDaniel. His fellow Wu Tang member, GZA, claimed in "Shadowboxing" that his style breaks backs like Ken Patera. Years later, J. Cole call himsel a Stone Cold Stunner like Steve Austin in his song "Cost Me a Lot."

Lil' Wayne has gone this route so often that he should probably send Vince McMahon a check. 

Chris Pizzello/Associated Press

He has referenced a litany of wrestlers throughout his career. The nWo, Andre the Giant, Rey Mysterio, Dusty Rhodes, John Cena and Sid Vicious have all popped up in his songs. 

At the height of the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars between WCW and WWE, wrestling was at its apex in terms of cultural acceptance. It was at this point that some executives recognized the potential crossover appeal between hip-hop and wrestling. 

The results weren't musical masterpieces, but they were fun nonetheless. 

Several rappers provided music for a 1999 WCW video game. The resulting album, WCW Mayhem: The Music, boasted a song that was almost entirely about wrestling. "Pay-Per-View" is easily the song with the most wrestler name-dropping.

In it, Jadakiss raps, "The Ryders roll thick like nWo. Everybody want to shine until they get Steinerlined." Disco Inferno, Eddie Guerrero and Randy Savage all got mentions elsewhere on the track as well.

The WWE (still WWF at the time) wasn't about to be outdone in collaborating with rap.

In 2000, the company released WWF Aggression, an album that featured artists redoing wrestlers' entrance themes as well as original songs. There's plenty of hard rock in the collection as well, but rap is well-represented.

Run DMC, Ice-T, Kool Keith and Snoop Dogg are among those that contributed. Method Man worked alongside The Rock to create "Know Your Role," a song that features the Wu Tang Clan original smack-talking with wrestling imagery and The Rock's "Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?" catchphrase as the hook.

The hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse was so enamored with the wrestling business that the rappers became part of it. After several appearances in the ring for WCW, they created their own promotion, Juggalo Championship Wrestling. 

Wale, an unabashed WWE fanatic, is among the group of today's rappers who keep the wrestling-referencing tradition alive. He has name-dropped guys such as Bret Hart in the past but last year went a step further.

He sampled Razor Ramon's entrance music for a freestyle that he named after the wrestler "(Razor) Bad Guy." The song acts as a testament to how long he's been a fan and how deep his love for all things WWE runs. In addition to the usual Flair reference, he throws in mentions of Hornswoggle, Rick Rude, CM Punk and Curtis Axel.

It's clear from Wale's proud love for WWE, and the long tradition of hip-hop artists saluting wrestlers through song, that Meek Mill won't be the last rapper to overlap those two words. 

Song lyrics courtesy of the Original Hip-Hop & Rap Lyrics Archive.