X-pac heat is a bullshit concept

[shattered dreams]

Among many phrases that are constantly overused and incorrectly used in the IWC this is one of the worst. The idea is simple enough, people giving heat because they legitimately do not like the person or what is happening supposedly instead of the theoretically preferred kayfabe reaction. There are several things that I do not get or am annoyed by about this concept.

First problem, how do you get real heat from smarks (the main or possibly only people that deliver this x-pac heat)? Aside from this so called "X-pac heat" I do not think you really can get heat from such people. If you do a good job being a kayfabe heel then they cheer you. In fact, the main problem with this whole concept is that kayfabe is basically dead. Ideally you would probably like a mix of both reactions but the idea that any semblance of X-pac heat is bad is just ridiculous. There just is not this obvious difference between the two when it comes down to it. A good heel's job is to make you really hate them to the point you irrationally react to it all. In present times having something real to fuel this hate can be quite helpful.

My second big point is something is not getting "x-pac heat" because YOU personally do not like it. YOU ARE NOT THE CROWD (yes even if 10 people agreed with you on the internet). Too often an idiot that doesn't like a storyline or whatever claims it is getting X-pac heat for these completely incorrect reasons. If the crowd is clearly not reacting this way then please spare us the crap.

Am I the only one that thinks within reason at the end of the day heat is heat? Cheap, x-pac, "regular" or whatever other stupid term you want to try and attach to it. Too often these terms are only used by people trying to sound like they have justification for their personal opinions of the action. That is the last thing they mean.

 

[UltimateHitman]

I don't think it's a bullshit concept. Sure, maybe some people overuse it, but the same can be said for people saying "Oh, he's doing a great heel job because you don't like him".

I can't count the number of times I've seen in a discussion where people make that statement. It does make a good argument in some instances, but it's becoming the cop-out statement towards people that legitimately don't like someone/something (specifically the Angle/Jarrett fiasco).

I'll use Jarrett as my example. I don't like him, I've never liked him, and I would prefer not seeing him on tv ever again. I don't like the guy from a personal or professional standpoint. And I've seen him from years ago until today. The stuff he does doesn't make me "want to see a face finally take him down", it makes me want to do other things or change the channel.

Let's compare that to, say, the Corre this past Smackdown. They beat down Rey, people boo, then they cheer Show because he comes out to rescue Rey. The crowd loves it because they feel they're going to see the Corre taken out by the face. Does that take away from any of the individual Corre member's abilities? Does it mean that people legitimately don't like them as people? No, it just means they don't like the heel characters they portray in their story lines.

Jarrett is much different. His ego is only surpassed, I think, by Hogan's. He thinks he's some kind of draw, and he is definitely not. I think it's funny when people talk about Matt Hardy's self-promotion and ego, saying Matt Hardy is Matt Hardy's biggest fan, when clearly Jarrett is much worse. He doesn't draw, the wrestling world would not bat an eye if he was gone. And that, my friends, is X-Pac heat.

I think it works to express legitimate feelings when everything seems to be played off lately as "good heel heat". Not all negative comments are geared towards simply the character. Jarrett could turn face Thursday and I'd still want him off the tv for the rest of my hours on this good earth. So that would kind of defeat the purpose of saying that it's just the character generating the heat. Face or heel, Jarrett's a tool.

I just think that it helps to convey an emotion that some attempt to dismiss using other cliche phrases on the opposite side of the coin.

 

[shattered dreams]

.I'll use Jarrett as my example. I don't like him, I've never liked him, and I would prefer not seeing him on tv ever again. I don't like the guy from a personal or professional standpoint. And I've seen him from years ago until today. The stuff he does doesn't make me "want to see a face finally take him down", it makes me want to do other things or change the channel.

This illustrates one of my complaints. The idea behind such heat being a bad thing is that people will quit watching or whatever. You say you have this problem with Jarrett yet you have watched him for years and continue to watch him. It is just an excuse for smarks to try and live their dream of having their personal complaints be justified. The supposed threat that makes the whole concept work is invalid because these people will not quit watching.

The idea that someone is doing a bad job as a heel in general just because you personally "legitimately" dislike them is way more flawed than the idea you complain about.

 

[Alastor]

I think the idea is that people continue to watch wrestlers with X-pac heat because they are constantly forced on us. If they are paired with wrestlers that people want to see, you cannot attribute people watching because of him. It works in spite of him. Use Jarret for example, if he is paired with a lower profile face, would people continue to watch him? Pair him up with someone like Angle, of course the audience will watch his matches. A good heel like HHH, Flair or Orton makes people want to see him get beat and you can pair a lower profile face to make the feud work. For X-pac heat guys like Jarrett, that would not be feasible.

 

[shattered dreams]

And there goes someone proving the other point. Jarrett is not an "X-pac heat" guy right now. The crowd is clearly not reacting to him that way. Yet you are claiming he is or always has been or whatever based on your personal opinion of him or a storyline. One person's opinion cannot make it an X-pac heat situation.

 

[mrbooker]

Or maybe much like myself UltimateHitman is a fan of WRESTLING, not WWE, or WCW or TNA or a certain era but of wrestling, I agree with him on every statement he said about jarret and yes i continue watching because i love wrestling and have been watching it for over 18 years

You saying "Am I the only one that thinks within reason at the end of the day heat is heat?"

no heat is not heat

Michael cole is a good example for months he has been doing the "i quote" spot and the kissing the miz's ass spot and guess what was it gained heat for a while and then he kept doing it OVER and OVER and OVER and it went from heat to people actually hating michael cole and not wanting him a part of their programming. Him arguing with announcers and matches not being called and PPV not being promoted because he is to busy arguing.

Its just like a heel going out every single night and talking trash about the city their in and their sports team, they arent being some great heel doing some fabolous promo because people are booing they are being generic and boring and people are hating them for doing the same shit and not entertaining them.... that doesnt mean you are being a good heel.

Hence why the Michael Cole heel character is getting killed off at mania.

Just because people keep watching doesnt mean anything except for the fact that they are a wrestling and arent going to let one wrestler/character discourage them from a product.

If it helps you here is a way tell how heat is not heat

Vickie Guerrero- genuine heat crowd hates her boo's the living shit out here anytime she is on the mic to the point she cant finish her sentence, whether its "excuse me" or her lauging or her simply talking the crowd goes nuts.

Michael Cole- crowd boo's that he does the same shyt every week "i quote", he buries faces and their entire character, and doesnt call that match

Jeff Jarrett- gets little reaction from the crowd and people bitching online, so if people are bitching online and the crowd isnt giving you much of a reaction when you have an opponent the caliber of Kurt Angle, and gets the TV time he gets.... No heat is not heat

Robbie E- the crowd yelling "this is boring"..... still think heat is heat if you do your dead wrong

 

[UltimateHitman]

This illustrates one of my complaints. The idea behind such heat being a bad thing is that people will quit watching or whatever. You say you have this problem with Jarrett yet you have watched him for years and continue to watch him. It is just an excuse for smarks to try and live their dream of having their personal complaints be justified. The supposed threat that makes the whole concept work is invalid because these people will not quit watching.

The idea that someone is doing a bad job as a heel in general just because you personally "legitimately" dislike them is way more flawed than the idea you complain about.

See what I was getting at? There cannot be any legitimacy in people like you's minds when somebody says what I did. First, I said I've "seen" him, not that I "continued to watch him". He was on a dvd I got from Netflix, it was earlier in his career, he was tagging w/Lawler, and I checked out the match for a couple min. to see if he might have had any redeeming qualities back in the earlier years. I found none and skipped the match. How is that "genuine heat"?

And as for over the years, he's plagued the federations I've grown up watching! I do not "actively" seek out Jarrett matches. I have never once thought a show couldn't be successful w/out Jarrett.

This is what I'm getting at. Just because he's been present in wrestling Federations I've watched over the years, somehow means he's "a great heel" since I've seen him more than once. That's simply not the case, and you're trying to validate things simply because I do not find anything redeeming about him and because the years have been unnecessarily plagued by his presence. NOTHING about Jarrett is a good thing. Period. I don't hate him because "his character is designed to make me hate him". No.

What I don't get is how people try to write this off as "character hate". He's been through a bazillion different characters. Some even designed to garner affection and positive attention. And I could care less if any of them had gotten a chance to materialize on television. That's not good heat.

And because I may have "seen" him (for however many seconds or so) doesn't mean I continued to watch him, like I said. I switch the channel when he's on. If it was good heat, I'd keep watching until he was beaten. I ignore anything about him because he taints a sport I love to watch. So I should quit watching all of what I enjoy simply because one ignorant fucktard is still given tv time? No. I don't watch to see him, I don't want to see my "favorite face" finally topple the "annoying heel", I just don't want to see him anymore. Period. As of x amount of years ago.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

The term 'X-Pac heat' to me always meant that no matter what you do or say, in or out of the ring, you will get boo'ed constantly from entrance to exit, even if you're the face.

Take 2001 for example. X-Pac has been getting boo'ed out of arena's for the last 14 months straight. WCW has just been bought and the Invasion PPV is upon us. Every WWE superstar, whether heel or face is getting cheered...... EXCEPT X-Pac.

One match features Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert vs Hugh Morris, Shawn Stasiak and Chris Kanyon. Albert was in X-Factor (X-Pac's stable), had basically stolen the IC title from Kane about a month earlier and was firmly cemented as a heel. Hell, he'd been a fully blown heel well before then as well. Come the Invasion, he's getting the same cheers as Show and Billy.

X-Pac squares off against Billy Kidman, and the crowd shit on him from start to finish, non-stop. And that heat never went away.

Even in the other backyard promotions i've seen him in as 6-Pac, i've heard 'X-Pac sucks' chants, not '6-Pac sucks' but 'X-Pac' sucks. The same heat has followed him from promotion to promotion ever since.

THAT is X-Pac heat. Mike Adamle had X-Pac heat, Vickie G has X-Pac heat. That's about as far as i'd go with it.

Nothing those two could have ever done would have gotten the audience to cheer them. They might have cheered anouncements that they make or decisions that they'd made on screen concerning heel talent, but when they make their entrances, the heat rains AND pours.

I never had a problem watching X-Pac wrestle. Sure it was 90% spin kicks, bronco buster, X-Factor, match over every time, but i didn't think he deserved to have THAT much heat just for existing.

Rikishi plows down Austin with a car and a year or so later he's getting face pops again.

X-Pac steals Kane's girlfriend and never hears a positive reaction to the mention of his name again? THAT'S X-Pac heat. A throw away heel turn more or less ruins your career for seemingly no good reason.

That's how i always interpreted it anyway. A type of heel heat that just NEVER goes away and can ruin your career.

There's other types of heat too. Like the heat talent get for their physical appearance. MVP and Albert used to get that.

Remember the chants of 'POW-ER RAN-GER' that MVP used to get? Those fans weren't jeering him for being a heel or because they didn't like him they just ignored everything he did and made fun of his ring attire.

Albert used to get 'SHAVE YOUR BACK' chants EVERY match he didn't wear a t-shirt in. It didn't matter how good a match he was having, or bad a heel he was playing, or how well he portrayed his character, all the audience cared about, was the chance to mock his body hair.

I agree that the term 'X-Pac' heat does get used in the wrong situations regulalry, but i don't agree that it's a 'bullshit term'. As someone who witnessed it from day one with X-Pac, and having never actually felt that way about the guy, i couldn't honestly agree with such a statement.

 

[shattered dreams]

X-pac/go-away heat clearly does exist. What I am taking issue with more than anything is the idea that it happens with any regularity in the form of just boos for a heel to the point it is a real problem. One or even two nights with x-pac heat isn't that big of a deal. To me such heat can be definitively seen under two circumstances. Those being a face getting booed or a heel getting some form of inappropriate chant. Both situations are a problem when that is the only reaction the crowd gives and the reaction is consistent over a larger period of time but not otherwise IMO. These two specific situations are not covered by my "within reason" qualifier.

Cheap heat is a different topic but I did include that last part as a hope someone would bring it up in the course of the discussion. Clearly cheap heat is different than some other forms but the result is the same. History has proven time and time again cheap heat works. The insistence it isn't as good is more of an artistry complaint than a practical application one. The difference exists but ultimately it is esoteric.

Uhitman, I believe you legit dislike Jarrett, how exactly that came to be I can only speculate. What I do not understand is how you know so much about him if you have simply been tuning him out for years, why you are still feeling the need to comment on him if you just tune him out and why you have been commenting in many threads about his current angle if you are changing the channel? He might not be a draw for you but there does not seem to be much empirical evidence of you actually turning him of, which is the only thing that actually matters.

 

[Jackal960]

Good points you have made. It's important for a heel not to get people cheer for him. Also what doesn't work for you might work for someone else so noone can decide if anyone is a great heel or not.

However, i define X-Pac Heat as something else. As a person who has "X-Pac" heat to X-Pac himself, i think getting such heat is not a good thing. I personally don't like people getting cheap heats. I will explain my definition of cheap heat. In these cases i'm not booing them because of them being a heel, i'm booing them because i don't like the way they are trying to get heat, or simply put i think they are unsuccessful of what they are doing (being a heel). I will give an example: Vickie used to be Edge's lover and had caused every sort of problems to Taker, although i was booing her back then and extremely hated her for what she was doing, i thought she was successful at what she was trying to do. However nowadays she is coming out with less reaction than she used to, and people don't even start to really boo her until she strats yelling "excuse me" for no reason. When she starts yelling excuse me for no reason i will start to boo her because i wonder if she couldn't find anything better than this crap in all those years.

Of course this is only my opinion, it might work for someone else, but before judging a heel i think you should look at the way he/she gets heat. If i go out there and do stupid things in the ring people will start to boo me too but not because i'm being a great heel, it's simply because i'm not good at what i'm trying to do. It seems like a paradox but actually when you think of it, thats the definition of "cheap" heat in my eyes.

 

[Rayne]

X-Pac heat is a real thing, although people call heat "X-Pac heat" way more often then they should. The term started during X-Pac's last run with the WWE, where no matter how they packaged him, the fans just didn't want to see him. As a face, they booed him; as a heel, people didn't care enough about him to allow him to elevate the faces he worked with.

For those of you who are curious, X-Pac is wrestling right near where I live in two weeks. At a bar/restaurant. I'm not making this up. http://powerhousene.tripod.com/, for those of you who think that's too hilarious to be true. The venue *might* have seating room for 100.

However, heat is not heat is not heat, and this is the biggest misconception I see around here- if it gets heat, then it must be good. I bet Jeff Hardy could finally get heat if he dropped his pants and took a shit in the middle of the ring, but how does that heat translate into money? Heat is only good if it invests the fans further into the product. Without that, it's just a bad guy doing bad guy things because he's a bad guy. This is why the term is called "X-Pac heat", because it's a type of heat, but not the kind of heat a professional wrestler can use to advance the product.

It doesn't happen often. People love to cite Vicki Guerrero as having X-Pac heat, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. They'd cream their jeans if Edge backhanded her. When X-Pac was working heel, whoever was working face with him could have ran him down with a semi, and the crowd would react by hoping they could hit the bathroom fast enough before the next segment started.

 

[Craig-O-Mac]

I'm with Ultimate Hitman on this... I HATE Jeff Jarrett on my TV. When ever I hear that obnoxious music hitting, I'm up to take a leak or grab a beer. I seriously just want him to.....wait for it.... GO AWAY!!!

He has a shit look, bores me to tears, hasn't been relevant in forever and oh yeah, used to be Fucking DOUBLE J!!!

I really think we need to update the name of this reaction to Jarrett Heat

 

[shattered dreams]

Yep, Jarrett has so much Jarrett heat that probably the biggest babyface of all-time, Hulk Hogan, cut a promo on Jarrett, who was playing a heel role and had only recently returned from the whole drama with karen, and do you know who got the "X-pac heat?" Hulk Hogan. That was a year ago. Anybody that thinks Jarrett has x-pac heat right now is so stupid you cannot even put it in words. We get it, you personally do not like Jarrett. Just quit calling that x-pac heat.