I'm fairly certain we have all heard of the term used in wrestling called "HEAT" ...a term that a good majority of modern"creative" have no clue about (or at least very little)
Now, you would have to agree with the theory that the bigger wrestling companies (WWE, TNA) are hog tied into a PG mode by advertisers....I mean the closest I ve seen to heat on RAW or Smackdown is Rusev waiving his russian flag, which is stupid, cause i didnt know the cold war was still on, or Seth Rollins curb stomping all and assundry, the biggest potential heat magnet on RAW is Bray Wyatt, his potential for white hot heat is unmeasurable, but sadly, the writers that the WWE hired from daytime soap land have no f**king idea about heat.
Heat, ideally, the heel has to be thoroughly convincing that he is doing what his doing for all the right reasons ( in his mind anyway)....I heard Bill Dundee say about heat once, "kids today dont about heat, they have never had their tyres slashed or sugar in the petrol tanks, hell, I've been cut 2 or 3 times cause I had them white hot"
Like I said, I been watching wrestling a looong time..just coming up to 46 years actually....and, as I may have mentioned before, I had the great fortune to be around and going to shows in the midst of what I still consider to be the greatest angle in wrestling history, well, Australian wrestling history anyway...THE WAR.
Probably around 1972, Mark Lewin got the book in Australia and constructed the angle that was the one that got me hooked into wrestling.....Luckily, he had the ideal heel, one, William Goodman,who donned the chrome germanic helmet and became the General of the Army BIG BAD JOHN...His army of heels included Abdullah the Butcher, Waldo von Erich, Bulldog Brower, Mr Fuji, Hiro and Hito Tojo, Don Fargo, Blackjack Slade and Tiger Jeet Singh....John was one of the greatest promos I ever heard, because he was thoroughly convincing that he started the war because he was sick of Mark Lewin and his mates "taking all the gravy" out of Australia and not sharing it....a fine example of making the people believe what his character believed.
One of the best heat getters have been the "turn" to the darkside, now, these dont always work, but when they do its brilliant, unless your the Road Warriors spiking Dusty in the eye, they were getting cheered....Hell, even Mario Milano joined up with Gary Hart in Australia, I tell you, that stunned more people than the bombing on Number 96.
MODERN HEAT [or the resemblence there of]
Like I said modern wrestlers in the "bigger" companies, for the most part have been hog tied by PG rating forced upon them by advertisers or tv channels...for instance, Imagine if Bray Wyatt had the PG rating removed, he could become the next Kevin Steen, who I will get to shortly, because the character of Bray Wyatt appears to firmly believe in what he says in his promos, can you imagine if he had cart blance to go for it...I think he would be off the charts.
Imagine if Bray was around when Randy Orton was punting people left and right BUT Wyatt was doing it instead of Orton, fans would still be talking about it (in my humble opinion}
Recently, ROH had a crack at some heat by getting Adam Cole to cut a promo on Papa Brisco, then kick him in the skull, this led to a Fight Without Honor at Final Battle 2014, some would say that was cheap heat, but in the modern era, it was as well done as any other piece of business.
Did someone mention Kevin Steen...NOW, Im s Steen fan without question, got the shirt and the dvds...and even me after all this time was stunned when he turned on Generico, a thoughjt of "what a prick" even crossed my mind....Steen along with Corino, Cabana and Generico snuck this brilliant piece of business under the noses of the booking team at ROH and it has since become one of the greatest angles in ROH history...
Both Steen and Generico or Owens and Zayn, if you like have signed with WWE and are in the NXT section of the company...someone in NXT creative has been watching ROH because when Zayn won the NXT title the first guy in the ring to hug the new champ was his best friend Kevin Owens...who as soon as the ring cleared came back down and powerbombed the new champ on the edge of the ring...AND ITS OFF TO THE RACES WE GO...again.
Speaking of modern heat getters...I recently discovered a wrestling company in the U.K called PROGRESS and two of their heels stood out in particular, the first was Michael Gilbert, who recently adopted a "no gimmicks" state of mind, he used to look like a cross between Dee Snider and Raven, but not now and like all good heels, he believes his way is the right way, for him anyway....and then their is the current champion, bloke named Jimmy Havoc quite possibly is one of the best heels I've ever seen...
.there was a 4 team tag at the Chapter 13 show, one of the teams The Swords of Essex split up mid match and at the end of the match, The London Riots and Jimmy Havoc duct taped Will Osperay to a chair and Jimmy said to Will, and I paraphrase, " Will, this has got nothing to do with you, its all the promoters fault your in this situation" then he whipped out a switchblade...and threatend to torture the kid, until the promotion stopped booking him in crazy matches trying to make him lose the title, then there was mass run in by the good guys...apparently Jimmy feels hard done by by the powers that be and seems certainly determined to hang onto his title by fair means or foul...probably more foul.
Will we ever go back to those days of white hot heat...definately not, we are way past the point of even considering it...thank the wrestling gods for DVD'S and blogs huh?
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