Everything about Heat Professional Wrestling totally explained
:
This article is about a professional wrestling term. For the World Wrestling Entertainment program; see WWE Heat.
In
professional wrestling,
heat refers to both crowd reaction and real-life animosity between those involved in the professional wrestling business. In terms of crowd reaction, heat is usually either cheers for a
babyface or boos for a
heel. The amount of heat a wrestler generates is often an accurate gauge of his popularity.
Canned heat
"Canned heat" refers to playing a recording of cheering or booing through the arena's sound system or adding it to a taped show. This serves to either amplify a crowd reaction or to mask silence from the crowd. Pre-taped crowd reactions from other events are also spliced in with the programming to make it look like the crowd is more energetic than they actually are. WCW was once accused of pumping in crowd chants for Bill Goldberg. When WWF wrestler Dwayne Gill was repackaged as Gillberg, who used Bill Goldberg's wrestling moves and mannerisms, his entrance was accompanied by over exaggerated and clearly recorded chants of "Gillberg". The announcers also commented on how none of the fans in the arena were chanting to make it clear to viewers that canned heat was being used.
Cheap heat
Heels draw "cheap heat" by blatantly insulting the fans, a local sports team, or the town they're performing in. This is called "cheap" because it's an easy way for heels to receive boos. Faces will sometimes do the equivalent, referred to as a
Cheap Pop, by referring to the town or promising to "win one for the fans".
Heel wrestlers can also draw cheap heat by referring to a mainstream news event as part of their
promo, especially if the event has strongly emotional or political ramifications (for example, a natural disaster), although they sometimes don't mention it by name. One example of a wrestler using cheap heat was
Sgt. Slaughter, who often delivered anti-American promos during the
Gulf War (and
Operation Desert Shield immediately before it) as part of his
Iraqi sympathizer heel gimmick; one of those promos came at
Survivor Series 1990, where Slaughter insulted servicemen stationed in Iraq for
Thanksgiving.
Historically, another common practice of heel wrestlers to draw cheap heat involves using
racial and ethnic slurs to offend the collective sensibility of wrestling fans. In 1972, as the
American Indian Movement was gaining momentum,
Baron Von Raschke was known to refer to
Native American WWA World Heavyweight Champion Billy Red Cloud as a "dirty low down Injun" as a means of drawing cheap heat.
(External Link
) Rowdy Roddy Piper also used racist terms when promoting his match against
Hulk Hogan and
Mr. T for
Wrestlemania I when calling T's fans "porch monkeys", calling T a "monkey" and feeding his poster bananas, and threatening to "whip him like a slave". In 2004, while in Germany, JBL (
John Bradshaw Layfield) used
Nazi salutes and was booed heavily by the crowd. Such an act is illegal if used for political purposes.
Dead heat
"Dead heat" refers to the absence of crowd reaction during a match or promo. In the original
ECW, the crowd often made derisive chants such as "Boring!" or "This Match Sucks!". Many "dead heat" chants have been heard during the latest reincarnation of ECW (mostly in matches involving established WWE superstars), with the fans starting chants like "Change The Channel!", "You Both Suck!", and "Where's Our Refund?"
Sometimes, during such matches, the fans will make a local sports chant just out of boredom with the match.
Legit heat
"Heat" can also refer to legitimate personal animosity between people in the wrestling business. This is sometimes referred to as "legit heat" or simply "heat". Examples of legit heat were the feuds between
Bret Hart and
Shawn Michaels, and
Chris Benoit and
Kevin Sullivan in the mid 1990s or between
Edge and
Matt Hardy as well as
WWE Divas
Mickie James and
Melina.
Regional heat
Regional heat refers to a wrestler receiving a different reaction in certain locations than he normally would. This is most noticeable in Canada, as the fans tend to cheer all Canadian wrestlers, regardless of heel/face alignment. Other examples include Nunzio's popularity in Italy.
Hometown Heat is a specific kind of regional heat, in which wrestlers are cheered while wrestling in their home towns. They may receive more cheers than they normally would, or have the fans cheer them even if they're working heel. One example of this was Kurt Angle's appearance in a WWE show in Pittsburgh, where he was completely unable to get the fans to boo him, even after insulting the local sports teams.
X-Pac heat
"
X-Pac heat", sometimes called "Go-away heat", refers to heat drawn by performers whom the fans are not interested in any capacity and don't want to watch. Heel characters are supposed to be booed, and a negative crowd reaction generally means that the fans care about the wrestler and will pay money to watch him out of hope he'll lose or be humiliated by the babyfaces. However, in the case of X-Pac heat, the crowd ignores face or heel alignment and boos the wrestler because they're actually bored with or have disdain for the performer (not the character) and would rather watch someone or something else.
The phrase "X-Pac heat" comes from the reaction that Sean Waltman's "
X-Pac" character received in WWF/WWE during his later tenure with that company. Booing and loudly chanting "X-Pac sucks!" when X-Pac wrestled became something of a running joke for audiences who had no interest in seeing him in action. It was also common to see many in attendance get up and walk out of the arena area when matches featuring X-Pac began, presumably because it was deemed a good opportunity to visit the concession stand or restrooms, as there was little to no interest in the match.
Waltman's "X-Pac heat" was especially prevalent during the
WCW/ECW Invasion when he was the only WWE performer who was booed during his match, while his opponent (
WCW Cruiserweight Champion Billy Kidman) was cheered, even though WWE was being uniformly portrayed as faces.
Other wrestlers names have been used instead of X-Pac's. In particular, the term "
Bossman heat" was almost as prolific as "X-Pac heat", prior to the Bossman's death.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Heat Professional Wrestling'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://heat__professional_wrestling.totallyexplained.com">Heat (professional wrestling) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
