Internet myths Part 1...Fake heat/X-Pac heat/Go away heat/ for heels

Rjd2

Is their such a thing really?

For those who don’t know what this term means, it’s essentially when the crowd are booing a heel not because they dislike them like the should, but because he/she is rubbish at their job. Vicky apparently in her days was booed for the wrong reasons? Confusing yeah?

Anyways it’s a term that floats around the internet so much and it bugs the hell out of me. Fans boo heels because they hate them and want to get their ass kicked. Ordinary fans don’t over think things like us; a heel comes out uses whatever means they can to get heat. Most of them probably don’t know what “X-Pac heat” means. I don’t know if I am explaining this properly but you get my point don’t you kids? Or I am to naïve?

Like Swagger heat.

Diabhal Beag

Vickie was a great heel. EXCUSE ME could send a silent crowd into a riot.

starviewadams

In WWE these days any heat can be considered great heat because so few heels can get any heat at all!

Mr.Nice Guy

Rjd2 wrote:

Anyways it’s a term that floats around the internet so much and it bugs the hell out of me. Fans boo heels because they hate them and want to get their ass kicked. Ordinary fans don’t over think things like us; a heel comes out uses whatever means they can to get heat. Most of them probably don’t know what “X-Pac heat” means. I don’t know if I am explaining this properly but you get my point don’t you kids? Or I am to naïve?

I think you're dwelling too much on the internet terminology. Most fans might not understand the terms but they understand the concept. Go away heat is basically a heel that is a channel-changer.

As you say fans are supposed to hate heels and want them to get their ass kicked but they're not supposed to be so disinterested in a character that they are turned off. If a heel is making people at home switch over, and making people in the arena go to the concessions stand, then it is a big problem.

A good example of it this week was Orlando Jordan's O-Zone segment on TNA. It was awful stuff and even Taz shot it down on commentary. The goal is to have interesting characters and stories, just like a soap opera, and just like on a soap opera you want villains that the audience hates, but who they nonetheless find intriguing. Villains who they hope will get their comeuppance. They don't want villains that make them think twice about the show itself.

geeky

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I think you're dwelling too much on the internet terminology. Most fans might not understand the terms but they understand the concept. Go away heat is basically a heel that is a channel-changer.

As you say fans are supposed to hate heels and want them to get their ass kicked but they're not supposed to be so disinterested in a character that they are turned off. If a heel is making people at home switch over, and making people in the arena go to the concessions stand, then it is a big problem.

A good example of it this week was Orlando Jordan's O-Zone segment on TNA. It was awful stuff and even Taz shot it down on commentary. The goal is to have interesting characters and stories, just like a soap opera, and just like on a soap opera you want villains that the audience hates, but who they nonetheless find intriguing. Villains who they hope will get their comeuppance. They don't want villains that make them think twice about the show itself.

Emmm yeah what he said - with one addition. It is a term that's wayyyy overused, particularly when someone on a message board wants to slag off a perfectly competent heel that they've taken agin. Ironically, I think X-Pac himself was unfairly slagged off as drawing 'X-Pac heat'.

ScumdogV2

geeky wrote: »

Emmm yeah what he said - with one addition. It is a term that's wayyyy overused, particularly when someone on a message board wants to slag off a perfectly competent heel that they've taken agin. Ironically, I think X-Pac himself was unfairly slagged off as drawing 'X-Pac heat'.

Have to strongly disagree with this. He wasn't booed because he was a competent heel, he was booed because his character was stuck in 1998 and as a wrestler, he was as stale as two month old bread.

Have yourself a look at the Invasion PPV. At a time when the whole company turned babyface, X Pac still gets booed out of the building.

geeky

ScumdogV2 wrote: »

Have to strongly disagree with this. He wasn't booed because he was a competent heel, he was booed because his character was stuck in 1998 and as a wrestler, he was as stale as two month old bread.

Have yourself a look at the Invasion PPV. At a time when the whole company turned babyface, X Pac still gets booed out of the building.

Hmm - I'll have another look at this!

ScumdogV2

Good man. Watch the fans go mental for Billy Kidman too. Probably second best match of that PPV for me, and definitely one of X Pac's best matches in WWE.

Liking the Internet Myths thing though, great idea for a thread.

Handsome Bob

There is definitely such a thing as X-pac heat. For instance, Chris Jericho gets booed because he's great at what he does, what he actually says illicits the reaction from the crowd.

In comparison, Michelle McCool gets X-pac heat. The heat she gets has nothing to do with her "earning" it by cutting a really good heel promo. Rather, she gets booed because she's terrible at what she does, and her attempts at promos are just irritating for all the wrong reasons.

The best way I can describe it is this; you want to watch a good heel, whereas a bad heel who gets X-pac heat makes you want to turn off.

flahavaj

There are definitely times when heels are just so awful at what they do that they get booed for that reason rather than for the "right" reasons.

But......I f*cking hate the phrase "X Pac Heat" because it gets thrown around every time someone on the net sees a heel getting pushed that they don't particular like. It is a vastly vastly overused term, to the point that when I see someone use it now I just stop reading.

Its also worth bearing in mind that the old face heel divide that used to exist back in the 60's is long gone and dide a death during the attitude era when heelish behaviour a la Austin and even the Rock became something that audience's cheered rather than booed. Nowadays amazing heels like Orton who would have been hated back in the 80's now become de facto faces because the smarter modern audience realises that they are so good at what they do and enjoy them so much that they cher them rather than boo them. And a guy like Cena who's portrayed as a clean cut face whe would have been cheered like Hogan in the 80's is now booed and cheered in equal measure.

So using phrases like X Pac heat, in an era when faces and heels are no longer received as such, is as redundant as it is annoying tbh.

Jazzy

vicky is quite unwatchable. trying to watch raw atm... gonna take a break and fast forward past her segment here with edge. just as i was beginning to like Raw again they go and fudge it by putting on some woman who i dont really know (i had stopped watching properly when she was first around). its eddies ex, i loved eddie... why spit on his memory with this annoying crap. eddie was such a great wrestler and the way they are remembering him is with a cheap gimmick. so yeah, f**k off vicki

Riddle101

TBH I think it's silly, when people claim this heel wrestler or that heel wrestler has X-Pac heat. If they're heels then how do you know it's X-Pac heat? since they're supposed to get regular heat. X-Pac heat to me would me more around the lines of faces getting heat then heels. But then again, Cena got loads of boos during his first title reign, is that X-Pac heat? The only thing I can think of that signifies that a heel/face is getting X-Pac heat is if he/she isn't getting any reaction from the crowd at all.

Exclamation Marc

Riddle101 wrote: »

TBH I think it's silly, when people claim this heel wrestler or that heel wrestler has X-Pac heat. If they're heels then how do you know it's X-Pac heat? since they're supposed to get regular heat. X-Pac heat to me would me more around the lines of faces getting heat then heels. But then again, Cena got loads of boos during his first title reign, is that X-Pac heat? The only thing I can think of that signifies that a heel/face is getting X-Pac heat is if he/she isn't getting any reaction from the crowd at all.

I think its because when X-Pac was getting self-titled heat, people just didn't like him on TV, people didn't want to cheer him, people didn't want him to lose or get his ass kicked, they just had absolutely no interest in seeing him and his shtick was about ten years old and he was constantly being shoved down audiences throats in boring interchangeable stories. Whereas I probably hated John Cena as much a while back, but in a "I want someone to smash him around" way as opposed to wanting him off the screen. Good heels are those who have you hating them because of their actions and interviews etc, "X-pac" heels are those who you hate because they're boring, uninteresting, or just grating you down like Jillian Hall for example.

I would hazard an assumption that Mike Adamle had X-Pac heat for the entirety of his WWE run.

And I agree with Jazzy, when I saw Vickie on Raw this week, it seriously has be considering packing in Raw for a while as I did for Smackdown a couple of years ago. I find her to merely draw the audiences ire by being annoying and grating and screechy as opposed to being actually a heel.