Heat (professional wrestling)
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- 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.
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[edit] 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 it actually is. 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.
[edit] Cheap heat
Heels draw "cheap heat" by blatantly insulting the fans, a local sports team, or the town they are performing in. This is called "cheap" because it is 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 (e.g., a natural disaster), although they sometimes do not 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. [1] 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.
[edit] 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!". This was often done deliberately, booking an opening match to draw dead heat then sending out a main event star to beat down all the wrestlers in the match (usually 911 with chokeslams). 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.
[edit] 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, Chris Benoit and Kevin Sullivan, Jacques Rougeau & Dynamite Kid, Ric Flair and Mick Foley, Sable and Luna Vachon, and most recently between Edge and Matt Hardy.
[edit] 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. Inversely, Shawn Michaels has consistently received heat whenever he wrestles in Canada, due to the events of The Montreal Screwjob in 1997 regardless of his on-screen persona's alignment.
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.
[edit] 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 do not 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 will 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 are 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"[1], prior to the Bossman's death.
