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.
Although the term can in some contexts refer to either positive or negative crowd reactions, "heat" can otherwise be used specifically to mean a negative crowd response (booing etc.); its opposite being a "pop" or positive reaction (cheering etc.).
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"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, or if promoters want a storyline to go in a particular direction. Some examples include:
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. In 2003, The Rock used the Lakers-Kings rivalry to gain a lot of heel heat, when he was singing a song about leaving Sacramento. The last words of the song were "I'll be sure to come back when the Lakers beat the Kings in May."
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.[2] 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.[3]
"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 had been heard during the early days of World Wrestling Entertainment's ECW brand (mostly in matches involving established WWE superstars), with the fans starting chants like "Change the channel!", "You both suck!","Where's our refund?" and "Same Old Shit". Some smart marks who are familiar with the fact that crowd reactions are the bread and butter of the business will sometimes use dead heat in place of legit heat when a wrestler does something they do not like, in hopes that the lack of an audible reaction will do more to cause the wrestler to stop than booing will.
However, in some countries, fans will stay silent as a way to show respect to the wrestlers. Japan is well known for doing this (so much so that during a SmackDown show that was filmed in Japan, Michael Cole had to inform American viewers that the silence of the Japanese wrestling crowd in the arena that night was normal).
"Go-away heat" refers to heat drawn by performers in whom the fans are not interested in any capacity and do not want to watch. Heel characters are supposed to be booed (i.e. Roddy Piper in his early WWF years, Bret Hart during his "Canadian hero" angle), and a negative crowd reaction generally means that the fans are interested in the wrestler and will pay money to watch him out of hope he will lose or be humiliated by the babyfaces. However, for a wrestler drawing go-away 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.
"Go away" heat is generally not acknowledged by announcers as it indicates that an element of the product is failing to go over with fans. However, at WrestleMania XX, the fans booed Brock Lesnar in this manner, and the heat got so intense that Jim Ross actually had to mention the fact that it was to be Lesnar's last WWE match since he was looking to try out for the Minnesota Vikings NFL team. Lesnar's opponent that night, Goldberg, despite being a face, was also booed.
The term "[Wrestler name] heat" has been used to describe the kind of heat directed solely at an individual wrestler; for example, "X-Pac heat" was used commonly during the Invasion storyline when X-Pac was booed and his opponents cheered despite X-Pac being a face at the time, simply because the fans disliked X-Pac as a wrestler.
Another type of "go-away heat" is an infamous chant. The fans, if they are not enjoying a match or segment, will sometimes begin a "boring" chant (as they did in the Lesnar vs. Goldberg match mentioned above). Though this is usually ignored, it's sometimes acknowledged, and it's sometimes even encouraged as part of a wrestler's gimmick (in 2003, Lance Storm received the boring chants, though this was a work due to Stone Cold Steve Austin came out with a pillow and blanket during a match on Raw and proceeded to use the chant as a way to enrage him to do something exciting within kayfabe).
"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 and Dynamite Kid, Ric Flair and Mick Foley, Sable and Luna Vachon, Edge and Matt Hardy, Melina and Candice Michelle, Batista and Booker T, Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett, CM Punk and Randy Orton, and Melina (and John Morrison) and Trish Stratus
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 heel heat whenever he wrestles in Canada, due to the events of the infamous 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 his hometown of Pittsburgh, where he was completely unable to get the fans to boo him, even after insulting the local sports teams. Another example of this is when Edge fought John Cena in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match at Unforgiven (2006) in Toronto, Ontario, which was Edge's hometown.
Also heel wrestlers may be booked in the babyface role whilst in their hometown, one example of this practice is whenever William Regal wrestles in England, whilst he may be a heel normally he is booked as the babyface for the night.