Rick Boogs is one of the interesting talents on WWE SmackDown but does he really play the Guitar during Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance?
Rick Boogs has been exceptionally well since the time he has made his debut in May alongside Shinsuke Nakamura. Boogs has also teamed up as Nakamura’s Tag team partner on two occasions, and the duo has won both matches. Let us find out more about the Guitar and Rick Boogs partnership.
Eric Bugenhagen, aka Rick Boogs, is an American professional wrestler and is currently signed to WWE, where he performs for the SmackDown brand. He is a former WWE 24/7 Champion as well. He also has a YouTube channel focused on weight training and comedy.
On May 21, 2021, Boogs made his debut for the blue brand playing the entrance of Shinsuke Nakamura to the ring with an electric guitar. But do you know he hadn’t actually practised playing the Guitar in the last 15 years but prepared the theme song in just 12 hours.
He appeared as a guest on WWE After the Bell Podcast and talked about how he did it. He mentioned that he was pretty shocked as he hadn’t played the Guitar for such a long time. To directly go and play on such a big platform was difficult. He mentioned that he played the song when he was just 16 years old. Boogs said that this is the largest crowd that he has played the Guitar on in his whole life as earlier the biggest crowd he faced was in school.
“Let’s say about 12 hours of heads up. I get a text like the night before to be at SmackDown, and this is what I was going to do: so, I play his theme on Guitar, sure. I [played] Guitar [before], but I hadn’t played Guitar other than a little bit here and there. I hadn’t practiced in like 15 years. From time to time, maybe I’ll do something simple and easy and just put it on Instagram, but it’s not like I practice. I’ve played this song when I was 16 years old. I can remember it. So, then they’re like, ‘learn this’, and I’m like, ‘of course I’ll do it.’
“But the anticipation and the nerves with that? Not just playing Guitar, because I was in a band in high school and the biggest crowd we played in front of was 25 people. So now, it’s like, can you learn this thing in a matter of hours? Everyone’s going to judge you, it’s going to be in front of millions of people, and it’s not really what I do.”
He was not a regular guitarist but made a brilliant effort to pull off something incredible. Boogs mentioned that he was not practising the Guitar at all. The original theme song of Shinsuke has some violin in it, and it is different from Guitar, so he decided to add his own taste to it and make it a rock and roll version.
It was not as easy as it looked since the time he played the silhouette. There was no practice and the first few times doing it was really rough and not very good. But now, after a total of four months, he has got it.
“Let me just stress it, I wasn’t practising Guitar at all. [Shinsuke’s music], it’s all bends and stuff like that. It’s a violin, so it’s a little bit different than a guitar, it’s bends, it takes finesse. So, I was thinking maybe I’d play the rock and roll version. So, I’m playing it during rehearsal because they want to see what it sounds like.
Then I played the silhouette, so basically, this was with no practice, and obviously, I’ll be the first to admit it, the first few times doing it it was rough. Not very good. It was off. I’ve got a feel, baby. I’ve been doing this for like four months playing this now, now I’ve got it.” (H/t Wrestling Inc.)
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