Inprofessional wrestling,heat can refer to both crowd reactions and real-life animosity between those involved in a professional wrestlingangle, or match.
In terms of crowd reaction, heat is usually used to denote how much of a reaction aheel wrestler receives, but can also be used for ababyface. Although the term can in some contexts refer to either positive or negative crowd reactions, heat is usually used specifically to mean a negative crowd response (e.g.booing), with its opposite being a "pop" or positive reaction (cheering, clapping, etc.).
As heat typically refers to a negative reaction that a wrestling character gets from a crowd in a performance setting, it has also become slang for a negative reaction that a wrestler gets backstage from colleagues, management or both. Backstage heat can be garnered for both real and perceived slights and transgressions.[1]
Heels can draw "cheap heat" (called "cheap" because it is an easy way for the villains to receive boos) by blatantly insulting the fans, a local sports team, or the town in which they are performing.[2] Fan favorites would sometimes do the equivalent, referred to as a "cheap pop", by referring to the town (whichMick Foley popularized) or promising to "win one for the fans". The villains can also draw cheap heat by referring to a mainstream news event as part of theirpromo, especially if the event has strongly emotional or political ramifications (e.g. a natural disaster), although they sometimes do not mention it by name. Historically, another common practice of villains to draw cheap heat involves usingracial and ethnic slurs to offend the collective sensibility of wrestling fans. For example, in 1972, when theAmerican Indian Movement was gaining momentum,Baron von Raschke was known to refer toNative AmericanWWA World Heavyweight ChampionBilly Red Cloud as a "dirty low downInjun" as a means of drawing cheap heat.
Another example of a wrestler using cheap heat wasSgt. Slaughter, who often delivered anti-American promos during theGulf War (andOperation Desert Shield immediately before it) as part of hisIraqi sympathizergimmick; one of those promos came at the1990 Survivor Series, where Slaughter insulted servicemen stationed in Iraq forThanksgiving.[3] In 2003,The Rock used theLakers-Kings rivalry to gain cheap heat during aWWE Raw show inSacramento (The Rock even claimed that he was friends withLaker starShaquille O'Neal) when he was singing a song about leaving the city; the song's last lyrics were: "I'll be sure to come back when the Lakers beat the Kings in May."[4] In 2004 during a WWElive event in Germany,John Bradshaw Layfield usedNazi salutes and was booed heavily by the crowd.[5] In April 2006 during hisfeud withShawn Michaels,Mr. McMahon used religion and the city to get heat from the crowd inSt. Louis, Missouri by saying he went to hell that morning when his driver "got lost and ended up inEast St. Louis".[6][7]
More recent examples includeCM Punk andPaul Heyman in March 2013 mocking through displays of flippancy and disrespect towardsPaul Bearer (who had just died), stealing his trademark urn and with Punk going as far as assaultingThe Undertaker and constantly beating him with the urn (with Heyman being dressed up as Bearer) before then boldly opening the urn and emptying its contents over a fallen Undertaker.[8][9][10] In November 2015,Paige mocked thenDivas ChampionCharlotte about her late younger brotherReid.[11][12]
In October 2018 at theKey Arena inSeattle,Kevin Owens andElias received over six minutes of continuous booing after mocking the city's loss of theSuperSonics basketball teamto Oklahoma City.[13]
"Canned heat" refers to playing a recording of cheering or booing through the arena sound system or adding it to a taped show, to either amplify a crowd reaction or mask silence from the crowd. Pre-taped crowd reactions from other events are also spliced in with the programming to make the crowd look more energetic than it actually is, or ifpromoters want a storyline to go in a particular direction.
For example, in early 1992 theWorld Wrestling Federation was attempting topushSid Justice as a villain. During theRoyal Rumble match in January,[14] Justice – who had become popular due to his charisma – was loudly cheered when he eliminatedHulk Hogan, and commentatorsBobby "The Brain" Heenan andGorilla Monsoon picked up on this as a fair act.[15] However, the reaction was edited in future television replays, with Sid being booed heavily and Monsoon describing him as a "jerk."
BeforeSmackDown went live in 2016,[16] WWE usually overdubbed cheers on it and professional wrestling magazinePower Slam joked that the company has had to "fire up the Fake Crowd Roar Machine™ to add an artificial atmosphere".[17] This was particularly done forRoman Reigns, who was heavily booed at the time despite being booked as a babyface.
Gillberg's entrance mocked on this concept, which features pre-recorded "Gillberg" chants in reference to accusations ofWorld Championship Wrestling using pre-recorded crowd chants in entrances of the wrestler Gillberg parodies,Bill Goldberg.
This concept would end up being used outside of professional wrestling such as theNational Hockey League during the2020 Stanley Cup playoffs as theCOVID-19 pandemic hit United States and Canada thatimpacted the sporting world. The crowd noise was provided byElectronic Arts, combined with recordings of team-specific chants by season ticketholders of participating teams in bubble cities inEdmonton andToronto (the latter of which was also played in-arena).[18][19] Similarly, in theNational Football League,Fox lead commentatorJoe Buck in an interview withAndy Cohen stated that the network had not ruled out the possibility of usingartificial crowd noise on its telecasts for the2020 season to make up for the possibility of limited orno attendance at games, and that Fox was also exploring the possibility of masking empty stands withCGI crowds.[20][21] WWE would later follow up on the concept by installing LED boards onAmway Center and laterTropicana Field, branded asWWE ThunderDome on-screen and mixing arena's audio with that of the virtual fans when the promotion began moving tapings from theWWE Performance Center in August 2020.[22][23][24]
"Go home heat" (sometimes called "go away heat" or "nuclear heat") occurs when fans boo or jeer a legitimately disliked character or, sometimes, the wrestler playing that character. Go home heat can be given to wrestlers who are viewed negatively, either for theirbooking, their character, or even their actions outside of the show; thus, both heroes and villains can get this kind of heat. However, nuclear heat can also mean a heel character getting genuine disdain from fans, simply from great character work. This is much less common in the present day, as fans may be more clued in to the inner workings of professional wrestling, and this type of heat is transformed into a pop. This is due tosmarks realizing how good the character work is, and cheering instead of booing.
Generally speaking, go home heat happens either because the fans feel the promotion has been too aggressivelypushing a certain wrestler (regardless of his character alignment) who they feel is undeserving of their push, or because the character has become stale, boring, and uninteresting. While it can be difficult to distinguish the good heat for the villain from go away heat, with some fans and critics claiming it is indeed go away heat and others claiming it is good heat, there are a few example which are closer to be go away heat, most notably in WWE because of its major exposure. Notorious examples of the concept areThe Rock as Rocky Maivia,X-Pac (who popularized the term in the early 2000s so much that go away heat is also known as "X-Pac heat"),Triple H,John "Bradshaw" Layfield,Lita,Stephanie McMahon,Michael Cole in 2011, and more recentlyDeath Riders,Roman Reigns (seePersona and reception of Roman Reigns),Baron Corbin,Mercedes Moné,Jon Moxley,Young Bucks,Daniel Garcia,Wheeler Yuta,Gable Steveson,Nia Jax,Logan Paul,Karrion Kross,Austin Theory, andCharlotte Flair.
Between 1996 and 1997, Rocky Maivia was the first major example of go away heat and also the best example of turning the go away heat into a star by 1998.[25] Hyped as the WWF's first third-generation wrestler,[26] Maivia was a clean-cut heroic character who was pushed heavily from the start and won theIntercontinental Championship despite his wrestling inexperience.[27][28] This was during a transitional, but more edgy period that would lead to theAttitude Era, therefore audiences became increasingly hostile toward Maivia, with chants of "Die, Rocky, die!" and "Rocky sucks!" being heard during his matches.[25] After suffering alegit injury in April 1997, Maivia would return as a villain character in August 1997 by joining theNation of Domination and refusing to acknowledge the Rocky Maivia name, instead referring to himself in the third person as The Rock, insulting the audience in his promos as well as WWF television interviewers.[25] The Rock would eventually become the Nation's leader and draw good heat, then starting getting cheered while still being a villain before being officially turned back into a fan favorite character by September 1998.[29][30] During his time in the Nation, The Rock would get back the Intercontinental Championship and held it for 265 days (the second longest in the 1990s and the longest untilGunther in 2022),[31][32] with his second reign being better reviewed and theladder match in which he lost the title to Triple H atSummerSlam being rated ****1/4 out offive stars by journalistDave Meltzer ofWrestling Observer Newsletter (WON).[33][34]
Despite now getting the desired reaction, the WWF wouldturn him back into a villain (from November 1998 to April 1999) to feud with Mankind (Mick Foley)[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] and become the top villain tomain eventWrestleMania XV asWWF Champion anddrop the title to the company's "poster boy"[43]Stone Cold Steve Austin.[44] In April 1999, The Rock would turn back into a heroic character and would become one of the most successful characters of both the Attitude Era and WWE history.[25][45][46] Despite getting some mixed reactions and being booed a few times in 2001 and 2002, most notably against Austin in the main event ofWrestleMania X-Seven at Austin'shome state,[47]"Hollywood" Hulk Hogan atWrestleMania X8[48] andBrock Lesnar atSummerSlam,[49] The Rock would never draw go away heat and would instead use both the fans turning on him and him getting more successful in his actor career to turn back into a villain in 2003 to end his full-time career,[50][51] before becoming once again a fan favorite ever since 2004.[52][53][54][55]
During theInvasion storyline, where the WWF side (to which X-Pac belonged) was mostly portrayed as the heroes, the fans were vocal in their disapproval of X-Pac, which was acknowledged on-screen by bothAlliance memberBilly Kidman and later by WWF memberEdge.[56] This mass disapproval led to the term "X-Pac heat" as described above.
Between 1999 and 2001, Triple H had a successful run as the main villain of the WWF[57]—especially in 2000, when he became the first villain to win the main event ofWrestleMania and thus retain the WWF Championship,[58] as well as winning the "Feud of the Year" award by bothPWI (withKurt Angle)[59] andWON (with Mick Foley) and theWON "Wrestler of the Year" award[60] due his accomplishments and performances.[61] Dave Meltzer would rank Triple H'sdrawing power as the number one of the 2000s.
However, by late 2002 he would be criticized for the Katie Vickangle withKane, with his following feuds withScott Steiner andBooker T being criticized as well.[60] Thus his "reign of terror" with theWorld Heavyweight Championship (he was theinaugural holder, being awarded the title by Raw General ManagerEric Bischoff in September 2002)[62] by December 2002 to September 2003 would often being described as go away heat due to his mediocre angles and matches.[60][63]
As result of his go away heat, between 2002 and 2004 Triple H would win the "Worst Feud of the Year" with Kane (including the "Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic"), as well as the "Worst Worked Match of the Year" (with Scott Steiner in January 2003) and being voted byWON's readers as the "Most Overrated" (2002–2004) and the "Readers' Least Favorite Wrestler" (2002 and 2003).[60] It would stay with him despite getting in a better physical condition and thus having better matches and feuds by 2004[64][65]—due to him winning the title five times for a total of 616 days[66][67]—until heput overBatista (whose storyline building and eventual feud was highly acclaimed, winning theWON "Feud of the Year" award)[60] atWrestleMania 21,[68]Backlash[69] andVengeance.[70] After hisHell in a Cell match with Batista at Vengeance, Triple H was given a standing ovation.[71] Triple H would be getting cheered during his feud with Cena in 2006 despite still being a villain,[72][73] which would lead to his return as a fan favorite.[74]
John Bradshaw Layfield's push in 2004 that would change him from a predominantlytag team division competitor to a SmackDown! main eventer who went on to hold the WWE Championship for 280 days (the longest reign in a decade) is often seen as go away heat due to the push being perceived as forced and undeserving.[5] It was noted that Layfield's push came at a time where SmackDown!'s talent roster was short of heel main eventers due toBrock Lesnar leaving the company[75] and Kurt Angle due once again suffering from legitimate neck problems.[76] It came to light that then-reigning WWE Champion and top babyfaceEddie Guerrero felt a lot of pressure as he felt he was responsible for the drop in crowd attendance at SmackDown!'s live events at the time and wanted to drop the title.[77] Layfield would not improve things onSmackDown! during his reign and actually drew even less than Guerrero.[78] Furthermore, Layfield's matches on pay-per-view were not well received, including his WrestleMania 21 match with John Cena in which he lost the title.[79] However, the subsequent rematch between Layfield and Cena in an"I Quit" match atJudgment Day was better received.[80]
As a villainess, Stephanie McMahon has been able to draw many boos, but her run withThe Authority since 2013, as well as her run as Raw Commissioner, has been criticized and critics and fans alike saw her heat during this period as go away heat.[81][82][83]
Hulk Hogan, the face of the WWF that would lead to aboom in professional wrestling during the 1980s, may be included as well due to receiving less positive reactions by the early 1990s, including the Sid incident at the1992 Royal Rumble, and even getting some boos, especially in his early years withWorld Championship Wrestling (WCW).[84] This was mostly due to a stale character, which was turned as a villain inJuly 1996,[85] becoming the leader of theNew World Order (nWo) and eventually turning back into a fan favorite in 1999.[86]During the live debut ofMonday Night Raw onNetflix on January 6, 2025, Hogan was booed loudly by the audience when he came out to cut a promo forReal American Beer. Many commentators saw this as a culmination of years worth of fan frustration stemming from shoot interviews by other wrestlers speaking about Hogan, his political positions, and his own personal scandals.
Curiously, the last two WWE wrestlers billed as "the face of the company" or "the top guy" (John Cena andRoman Reigns) have been linked to have had go away heat, as both have in common the fact to be billed as heroic characters and staying as such despite getting jeers for years, unlike Rocky Maivia who was turned into a villain less than a year after his failed run as fan favorite.[87] Cena had a brief run as a villain between late 2002 and late 2003, when he was turned back into a fan favorite to acclaim, much like The Rock in 1998.[87] Cena would also win his firstworld title to a pop from the crowd, eventually surpassing Batista's popularity in 2005 that would see him beingmoved from SmackDown to theRawbrand.[88] By mid-2005, a change of character not appreciated by fans would see Cena changing from "The Doctor of Thuganomics" (a rapper) to a more clean-cut character (described by Cena as a "goody-two shoesSuperman") who would often "overcome the odds", thus getting his first boos and jeers.[89][90][91][92] In the following years, Cena would get mostly real "mixed reaction" rather than go away heat, oftentimes still getting more cheers than boos, with the notorious exception ofRob Van Dam'sMoney in the Bank cash-in at ECW'sOne Night Stand (with ECW being Van Dam's "home promotion"),[93][94]Tables, Ladders and Chairs match against Edge atUnforgiven in Edge'shometown[95][96] and againstCM Punk atMoney in the Bank in CM Punk'shometown.[97][98] Eventually, by the 2010s he would be reevaluated (ironically, also due Reigns being described as "even worse") and getting more cheers, especially during his run asUnited States Champion in 2015[99] and even when winning his 16th world championship against popular and respected veteranAJ Styles at theRoyal Rumble in January 2017.[100][101]
Reigns, while actually debuting on WWE's main roster as a villain in November 2012, would never actually have a villain single run due to debuting as part ofThe Shield.[102] By late 2013, Reigns would be getting the biggest push between the three members of The Shield (Dean Ambrose andSeth Rollins), as he got to win as sole survivor hisSurvivor Series 5-on-5Survivor Series match and the most elimination at 4,[103] being the only member of The Shield to defeat CM Punk[104] and breaking another record at theRoyal Rumble for the most eliminations in a singleRoyal Rumble match at 12, also eliminating both Ambrose and Rollins from the match and ending up being the runner-up (Reigns would get cheered over eventual winner Batista, as fans wanted fan favorite and popularDaniel Bryan to win instead of Batista),[105][106] being eventually billed as the leader of The Shield during their feud withEvolution (Batista,Randy Orton and Triple H) between April and May 2014.[107][108] After The Shield broke up in June 2014, the heroic Ambrose and the now villain Rollins would change their ring attire andtheme music (unlike Reigns, who retained much of The Shield's aesthetic including ring attire, a remixed version of the group's theme music and ring entrance),[109][110] eventually evolving their characters during their high acclaimed feud that won thePro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) award for the "Feud of the Year".[111] While Ambrose was being voted byPWI's reader as the "Most Popular Wrestler of the Year" in 2014 and 2015[111] and Rollins as both the "Wrestler of the Year" and the "Most Hated Wrestler of the Year" in 2015,[112] Reigns had finished in second place for theWON "Most Overrated" award in both 2014 and 2015.[113][114] When breaking up The Shield, WWE thought Reigns was the most popular between the three and thus pushed Reigns in the main event, immediately going after the world title.[115][116][117] However, as soon as his singles career on WWE's main roster started, Reigns' positive reactions started to diminish, culminating in Orton getting cheered over him during their match atSummerSlam.[118] After suffering a legitincarcerated hernia in September 2014,[119] Reigns' positive crowd reactions following his return in December further diminished,[120][121] culminating in Reigns "getting booed out of the building" after winning the2015 Royal Rumble.[122][123]
For those arguing that Reigns is getting go away heat, their reason is due his perceived forced push,[124][125][126] as he would headlineWrestleMania 31[127] after wrestling only two singles matches on pay-per-view[128][129] despite having a "very limited" in-ring moveset,[130] "forced promo delivery"[131] and a "petulant and annoyed" attitude ill-befitting of a top fan favorite.[132] Reigns' first coronation was set to happen in the main event of WrestleMania 31, but WWE ultimately decided to go with Rollins cashing-in hisMoney in the Bank contract and win the title[133][134] to avoid further negative reactions towards Reigns.[135][failed verification] Reigns would eventually win three world titles[136] and two consecutive WrestleMania main events (against Triple H atWrestleMania 32 and The Undertaker atWrestleMania 33) despite the continuing negative reactions by both critics and fans alike,[136][137] which has ledPWI readers to vote him as "Most Hated Wrestler of the Year" for 2016, a first for a heroic character since the award was devised in 1972.[138][139] It should also be noted that "business went up" with Cena,[140] who has been also one of the best merchandising seller in WWE history,[141] whereas the period in which WWE tried to push Reigns as the new face of the company and gave him multiple coronations at WrestleMania saw a much quicker decline inRaw viewership by late 2015,[142] when Reigns was made the number one contender for the world title in October[143][144] and eventually winning the title three times between November 2015 and April 2016.[145][146]
In August 2018 atSummerSlam, the audience started out giving Reigns a mixed crowd reaction during his entrance, but upon winning theWWE Universal Championship fromBrock Lesnar, Reigns was cheered.[147] The following night onRaw, Reigns was again booed early in the show, but received a mixed reaction for suggesting that he defend his newly won championship againstFinn Bálor later that night. After beating Bálor, Reigns was again heavily booed by the crowd, which increased in intensity after the match whenBraun Strowman attempted to cash in his Money in the Bank title shot. The subsequent Shield reunion and attack on Strowman was positively received by the Brooklyn audience, but was viewed by many as a cheap attempt to garner positive reactions for Reigns.[148]
However, all the heat diminished as of the October 22, 2018 episode ofRaw, when Reigns announced that he was re-diagnosed withleukemia after 11 years and would be taking a hiatus to treat it. As a result, he relinquished the Universal Championship, ending his reign of 64 days. Reigns initially received a mixed reaction upon entering the arena, but was welcomed with a positive reception after his announcement of leukemia was made.[149]
Cena's in the ring marinating in a mixture of 75% squeals and 25% boos
For Cena's initial entrance, it's high pitched squeals, and the requisite 40–50% boos ... there were significant cheers for Trips, which is the REAL issue in play, here.
What [Cena] hears is the same thing he heard last night: 10,000 lustily booing the hell out of him, and maybe 5,000 frantically cheering to try to match that volume level.
As Todd Martin,[Pro Wrestling] Torch VIP audio analyst says, it's a 'war on fans'. And Vince McMahon has a war on fans right now: he's not going with the flow – he's fighting it.
