WWE Heat
 |
| WWE Heat | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Vince McMahon |
| Starring | Raw Brand |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 513 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 46 minutes (television), 36 minutes (webcast) |
| Original release | |
| Network | USA Network (1998-2000) MTV (2000-2003) TNN/Spike TV (2003-2005) Webcast on WWE.com (2005-2008) |
| Release | August 2 1998 – May 30 2008 |
WWE Heat (formerly known as WWE Sunday Night Heat and capitalized as WWE HEAT) was a professional wrestling show for World Wrestling Entertainment.
It was aired on USA Network, MTV and Spike TV in the United States, Channel 4 and Sky One in the United Kingdom and CTV Sportsnet in Canada.
It was most recently streamed on WWE.com on Friday afternoons for North American viewers. However, the show was still televised internationally and showed in the United Kingdom on Sky Sports 3, Australia on FOX8, India on Ten Sports, Germany on Premiere Sport Portal, Spain on Sportmania and C+ Deportes -both channels from Digital +, the Middle East on ShowSports4, the Philippines on Jack TV, and Japan on J SPORTS. The final episode was uploaded to WWE.com on May 30 2008.[1] As a result of plans to have the ECW brand begin to tape their shows before Raw, the show was replaced internationally with "WWE Vintage Collection," a program featuring classic WWE matches.[2] Since then, it appears WWE may have changed their minds regarding the move, as WWE.com's live event schedule has reverted the previous changes.
History
Early years
The show was originally introduced as WWF Sunday Night HEAT on the USA Network in 1998. The one hour show would be broadcasted live on Sunday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern. It was the second most important show in the WWF line-up serving as a supplement to the Monday Night RAW program. HEAT would feature promos, vignettes and in-ring action just like RAW, and in many ways, it was what SmackDown! was to RAW from 1999 to 2002. Upper mid-card and main event wrestlers were no strangers to HEAT, appearing each week. Storylines from the previous week would progress during the show, and the next day's RAW would be heavily promoted. The show itself was a big ratings draw for the USA Network trailing not too far behind the big numbers of RAW.
1999-2002
With the advent of SmackDown! in 1999, HEAT significantly decreased in importance as well as ratings. The debut of SmackDown! also led to HEAT being taped before SmackDown! with matches for WWF syndication programs like Jakked/Metal to be taped before RAW broadcasts. When SmackDown! premiered in August 1999, HEAT briefly became a complete recap show, with exclusive interviews and feuds recapped as music videos. This only lasted a few weeks, and the show began airing exclusive matches again, this time taping before SmackDown!. Near the peak of WWE's popularity and as part of WWE's television deal with Viacom, the show was moved to MTV.
WWF has also aired two special editions of Halftime HEAT which aired during halftime of Super Bowl XXXIII on USA Network. These specials ended following the movement of HEAT to MTV. In 2000, the current logo and theme song was adopted.
When the show started airing on MTV in late 2000, it was broadcast live from WWF New York. WWF Superstars would appear at the restaurant as special guests while Michael Cole & Tazz would call pre-taped matches live.
2002-2005
This practice ended in 2002 and the show reverted to its original format of taping the matches, again before RAW, and have the commentators call the action and have it burned to the matches. It was at this time that (in the U.K.), Channel 4 ended their syndication of the program, which was later picked up by BSkyB, to compliment their existing coverage.
Since the brand extension in 2002, HEAT has been broadcast with only RAW superstars and reverted back to being before RAW. The exception to this was on pay-per-view nights, which were broadcast live from the pay-per-view venue and could involve SmackDown! wrestlers. In May 2002, SmackDown! branched off its own sister show, Velocity, which replaced JAKKED/METAL, and mirrored the same characteristics as HEAT.
Steven Richards, who at one time was the most regular competitor on Sunday Night HEAT, dubbed himself "General Manager of HEAT" (though he carried out no GM duties) and began calling the show Stevie Night HEAT.
2005-2008
HEAT and Velocity were not picked up by the USA Network when WWE moved its programming over to that network in October 2005, leaving Americans no way to watch WWE weekend shows on television. To solve this problem, WWE decided to stream the shows on their website exclusively for the U.S. audience, with new editions posted every Friday afternoon. Sunday Night HEAT was soon renamed to WWE HEAT, as it no longer aired on Sundays.
HEAT was still shown overseas to fulfill international programming commitments. For a while, a special 30-minute live edition of HEAT began airing in place of the traditional pre-taped Free For All PPV preshow. When WWE went high definition, HEAT began using the same HD set as RAW, SmackDown, and ECW
The final episode was uploaded to WWE.com on May 30, 2008. The show was replaced internationally with a new show featuring classic matches, called "WWE Vintage Collection." [3]
Title changes
Though the majority of title changes would take place on RAW, SmackDown!, or pay-per-view events, the WWF Championship changed hands on a special "Halftime HEAT" that aired during the half-time of Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999 when Mankind defeated The Rock in an empty arena match to win the title.[4]
Additionally, the Light Heavyweight Championship changed hands on HEAT on three occasions.[5][6] The first took place on the February 10, 2000 airing when Essa Rios (in his first appearance under that name and with the debuting Lita) defeated Gillberg. The second change saw Crash Holly defeat Dean Malenko on the March 15, 2001 episode. In the final change, the debuting Jerry Lynn defeated Crash Holly on a live edition before the Backlash pay-per-view on April 29, 2001.
Commentators and hosts
There have been many commentators in the history of HEAT. Industry veterans and RAW broadcasters Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler have done commentary on the show. The show was also the launchpad for Shane McMahon's on-camera career in WWE, originally placed in the role of a commentator for the program. In October 2000, the show was hosted by Rebecca Budig and MTV VJ/Rapper DJ Skribble when it moved from USA Network to MTV.
During pay-per-view events and often outside the venue, hosts introduce segments of the show, recently the hosts of The WWE Experience (Ivory and Todd Grisham) perform these duties. If a SmackDown brand pay-per-view takes place, SmackDown's main show announcers host the in-ring commentary for the show.
Often wrestlers would take the role of color commentators on the show with Al Snow, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, and D'Lo Brown all holding this position mostly as a replacement for an announcer who was unavailable. During the show's run on MTV, diva Lita also served as a commentator following her major neck injury.
Before the WWE-produced, Extreme Championship Wrestling reunion pay-per-view, One Night Stand 2005 took place, a special Extreme HEAT episode was broadcast and hosted by Jonathan Coachman and Michael Cole.
During one episode when Jonathan Coachman was unavailable, former ECW announcer (and then-lead RAW announcer) Joey Styles took part in the show. However, Styles then quit (kayfabe) on the following Monday's' RAW, meaning Grisham ran the show alone.
United Kingdom
In January 2000 WWF Sunday Night HEAT was shown Sundays at 4.00PM, and then moved to a Mid-Night slot and was then taken of the air in December 2001. A separate commentary was edited together for the UK syndicated version, which included references to the UK audience, and the show's broadcaster, Channel 4, but did not include the WWF New York segments that appeared in the U.S. version. In place, highlights from the past weeks RAW and SmackDown! were shown, as well as other content and interviews with current WWF superstars. A unique quirk in the commentary for the UK version of HEAT was that, while the programme was being broadcast on Channel 4, the announcers referred to RAW and SmackDown! as happening on Friday and Saturday, respectively. This is unique in two ways: it is the only time WWE has done such a thing (usually they just refer to the U.S. airdates), and it is one of the only occurrences of two rival channels referencing one another (RAW and SmackDown! aired on Sky Sports at that time). The 2-person commentary team was done by a mix of individuals, which included Michael Cole, Michael Hayes, Jonathan Coachman and Kevin Kelly. In January 2003, WWE HEAT replaced WWE Superstars and was shown 11.00AM. On the Nights of PPVs, the US Version, Live Pre Show was shown before the Pay Per View on Sky Sports 1. In the January 2005, WWE HEAT, was moved to Sky Sports, and shown at 10.00AM, until finally being replaced by a new Classic Footage show, WWE Vintage Collection.
Commentator history
| Commentator | Year(s) Active |
|---|---|
| Shane McMahon | 1998 - 2000 |
| Jim Cornette | 1998 - 1999 |
| Michael Cole | 1998 - 2002, 2005 |
| Kevin Kelly | 1998 - 2000 |
| Michael Hayes | 1999 - 2002 |
| Terry Taylor | 1999 |
| Tazz | 2000 - 2001 |
| Jonathan Coachman | 2001 - 2007 |
| Raven | 2001 - 2002 |
| Al Snow | 2001 - 2004 |
| Chris Leary | 2001 |
| Marc Loyd | 2002 - 2005 |
| D'Lo Brown | 2002 - 2003 |
| Lita | 2002 - 2003 |
| Todd Grisham | 2004 - 2008 |
| Ivory | 2004 - 2005 |
| Tommy Dreamer | 2006 |
| Joey Styles | 2006 |
| Jim Ross | 2006 |
| Steve Romero | 2006 |
| Jack Korpela | 2007 - 2008 |
| Josh Mathews | 2007, 2008 |
References
See also
External links
- Articles lacking sources from December 2007
- MTV television series
- Spike TV network shows
- USA Network shows
- Sunday
- World Wrestling Entertainment television programs
- World Wrestling Entertainment webcasts
- 1990s American television series
- 2000s American television series
- 1998 television series debuts
- 2008 television series endings
- WWE Raw