Empire State Building to Honor Raw, Nia Jax Hits Samoan Drop On Alexander (Videos), Jim Johnston Criticizes WWE Music

The official website of New York City’s Empire State Building has posted the following, noting the building will be lit in all red tonight to honor 25 years of WWE Raw.

Red in honor of the 25th anni. of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Raw Match.

WWE has released footage on Instagram of Stephanie McMahon and Triple H preparing to light the building, and you can check it out below:

Jim Johnston Criticizes WWE Music

Longtime WWE musician Jim Johnston, who was released from the company rather unceremoniously last year, recently spoke with Newsweek‘s Tufayel Ahmed, and below is what Johnston had to say about current WWE wrestler theme songs:

“…But what’s being produced just feels too homogenous. It’s just music that plays—it doesn’t feel like each guy is really themed. All the women have a dance music kind of thing. And it’s lots and lots of loud sound effects.   What makes me the worst is not anything that happened to me, or any negativity towards those composers…I feel bad for the talent trying to build careers for themselves when I just don’t feel they’re being served well enough to become stars. Before “Stone Cold” was “Stone Cold” he was The Ringmaster. The Ringmaster’s theme was something I wrote for him. The music can make such a difference in the person and how they perform. That same guy who was dead-in-the-water as The Ringmaster, a couple of tweaks, different music, different attitude, and he becomes one of the most popular people in the history of the genre.   I’m wondering who is working currently at WWE who is an absolute superstar but, who, because they’re wrapped in a homogenous piece of clothing, they’re stuck and can’t break out? I would hope they would try to really brand each guy and each woman as an individual.”

Nia Jax Hits Samoan Drop On Alexander

As we noted over the weekend, WWE held the first ever 205 Live house show event in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the show was headlined by Enzo Amore vs Cedric Alexander for the WWE Cruiserweight Title. Nia Jax acted as the special guest referee in the match, and below is footage of Jax hitting Alexander with a Samoan Drop to help Enzo retain his Title:

.@NiaJaxWWE helps @real1 retain the #CruiserweightChampionship in #205Poughkeepsie! #WWE @WWE205Live pic.twitter.com/z3OnRWUPSw

— WWE (@WWE) January 22, 2018