"Heavy Action" is a piece of music composed by Johnny Pearson. It is best known in the UK as the theme for Superstars, and in North America as the theme music for ABC and ESPN's Monday Night Football.

The BBC commissioned Pearson to write the piece to be used as the theme for their version of the TV show Superstars. The show had first aired in 1973 as a one-off special, but became a full-fledged series subsequently, and Pearson's theme was created for it in 1974.

In 1978, ABC, who had developed the original Superstars show in the US, acquired the rights to use "Heavy Action" as the opening theme music to Monday Night Football, although it would not become the official theme until 1989. In 1989, Edd Kalehoff arranged an entirely new recording of "Heavy Action" for the final years of Monday Night Football on ABC. It was also used as the background music during a halftime segment as Howard Cosell narrated highlights of the previous Sunday's games.

In 1998, the song was considered by The Walt Disney Company as one of the most exciting and thunderous songs of all time.

John Valmore Pearson (18 June 1925 – 20 March 2011), known as Johnny Pearson, was a British composer, orchestra leader and pianist. He led the Top of the Pops orchestra for sixteen years, wrote a catalogue of library music, and had many of his pieces used as the theme music to television series.

Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire Johnny Pearson showed talent with the piano at an early age. By nine, he had won a scholarship with the London Academy of Music. Here he spent four years under English pianist, Solomon. In his teens, he would give classical recitals, but his true love at the time was jazz. His first band was the Rhythm Makers. After World War II, he signed up and became one of the founding members of the Malcolm Mitchell Trio, before leaving in 1954. During his time with the trio, he toured England and Europe, playing the West End and theatres.

After leaving the trio, Pearson turned his talents to British radio, as well as performing in the Peter York Concert Orchestra. By 1960, he was conducting the Romance in Rhythm Orchestra. He recorded two singles for Parlophone, "Waterfall" in mid 1959, and "Theme from an L shaped room" in 1962. He was then offered a solo album deal with Oriole Records, which first teamed him up with John Schroeder. The Oriole album, Piano Sweet - Piano Wild, had a single taken from it, "Ooh La La", released in 1962. After the Oriole releases, Johnny Pearson continued to perform with various concert orchestras until 1964.

Radric Davis (born February 2, 1980), better known by his stage name Gucci Mane, is an American rapper. He debuted in 2005 with Trap House and followed with albums such as Hard to Kill in 2006, Trap-A-Thon and Back to the Trap House in 2007. In 2009, his second studio album The State vs. Radric Davis was released, and The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted was released in 2010, and is his highest charting album so far. Gucci Mane has released many other mixtapes and independent albums as well.

While serving a six-month jail term for assault in late 2005, Davis was charged with murder, though the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence. In 2009, he served a year-long county jail sentence for violating probation for his 2005 aggravated assault conviction.

Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and later moved with his single mother to Atlanta. He enjoyed writing poetry as a child, and began rapping at age 14.

In 2005, Davis released his independent debut album entitled Trap House, which featured the successful single "Icy" with Young Jeezy. Disputes over the rights to this single caused a rift between the two artists. Hard to Kill followed in 2006. Hard To Kill included the hit single "Freaky Gurl". The song peaked at number 12 on the Hot Rap Tracks, number 19 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and at number 62 on the Hot 100.

Keith Mansfield (born 1941) is a British composer and arranger known for his creation of prominent television theme tunes, including the Grandstand theme for the BBC. Other works include "Light and Tuneful" (the opening theme for the BBC's coverage of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships), "World Champions" (the closing theme for NBC's coverage of the same tournament) and "World Series" (used for the BBC's athletics coverage).

Mansfield is probably best known by American audiences as the composer of the tune "Funky Fanfare", (sampled by Danger Mouse as mentioned below) used for underscoring in the Astro Daters series of snipes produced by the National Screen Service in the late 1960s. That song is currently used during the opening credits of the show Pit Boss on Animal Planet. The Astro Daters' "Our Next Attraction" was featured prominently in two films by Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill and Grindhouse. A vocal version of Funky Fanfare entitled "House of Jack" was also recorded by James Royal in 1969. Another Mansfield composition, "National Trust," was the opening theme to the movie Fists of Fear, Touch of Death, which utilizes Mansfield's library music score, and as the logo jingle for CBS/Fox Video.