Darts Player Had World Championship Walk-On Request Immediately Rejected

A darts player had his walk-on song request turned down by the PDC at the World Championship - and believes it is the only time it has happened.

Back in 2021, Matthew Edgar reached the second round of the World Championship after defeating Maik Kuivenhoven in round one.

His reward was a match against Austria's Mensur Suljovic, who was still in the world's top 32 at the time and was therefore a seeded player for the tournament.

Edgar averaged 92 but lost 3-1 in sets to Suljovic in what is, to date, his most recent PDC World Championship match.

The Doncaster-born dartist lost his PDC tour card at the end of the tournament and was unsuccessful in attempting to regain it at Q-School.

The 39-year-old now occasionally competes in MODUS Super Series events, while he also entered the 2024 WDF World Championship.

But he is now well-established as a darts commentator and pundit, and runs his own YouTube channel, Edgar TV, that has over 60,000 subscribers.

Prior to his second-round match against Suljovic, Edgar requested to use the song 'Real American' - famously used by Hulk Hogan as his theme in WWE.

But he says that his request was turned down, and he instead used his usual walk-on song of 'Buck Rogers' by Feeder instead.

Speaking in a TikTok video, Edgar explained: "With this, the walk-on, you simply just present your song to the PDC, who will present it to the broadcaster.

"The copyright, we [the players] don't worry about that too much. That is to do with the licensing in the arena.

"I suggested 'Buck Rogers' by Feeder. Great song.

"In the second round, I was wearing a Hulk Hogan-inspired shirt. I wanted to come on, giving it all the Hulk Hogan stuff, Hulking up. And I wanted to use Hulk Hogan's 'Real American' theme.

"It was rejected, and the reason it was rejected is because of familiarity. They wanted people to get familiar with the song that I was using at the time, and not be chopping and changing.

"Other than that, I don't really know any other time a player's been rejected for a song."

The rules surrounding walk-ons have been relaxed since then, allowing players to use multiple different songs during the course of their World Championship runs.

The Hogan theme being rejected would have served as a double blow for Edgar, who trained to become a professional wrestler before joining the PDC in 2011.

He won multiple championships in British wrestling, though explained that he was 'no Jeff Hardy' in terms of his wrestling style.