Everything about Wwe Heat totally explained
WWE Heat (formerly known as
WWE Sunday Night Heat and capitalized as
WWE HEAT) is a
professional wrestling show for
World Wrestling Entertainment, showcasing talent from the
Raw roster with lower-card matches.
It is currently being streamed on WWE.com on Friday afternoons for North American viewers. However, the show is still televised internationally and shows 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 will be uploaded to WWE.com on
June 20 2008 before the show is replaced internationally with a "WWE Classics" program as a result of the
ECW brand beginning to tape their shows before
Raw.
It has been previously 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.
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.
WWE 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.
Now, WWE tends to use this program to showcase the talent that they don't use frequently on
RAW. Fans often refer to this show as the minor leagues, a B-Show, for the wrestlers on the show are usually at the beginning or the end of their careers in WWE. Occasionally, main eventers and champions will appear on the show, and usually win.
HEAT is also used to review the main events that happened on the previous edition of
Raw.
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.
Velocity was eventually axed when ECW was resurrected in
2006, and
Sunday Night HEAT was soon renamed to
WWE HEAT, as it no longer aired on Sundays.
After a while,
HEAT was changed to
Heat to be equal to the
Raw brand without capitialization in the name.
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.
Beginning on
June 23 2008, the
ECW brand will begin taping its shows at
Raw tapings. As a result,
Heat will cease to exist and will be replaced internationally with a "WWE Classics" program.
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 announce 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
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 didn't 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's the only time WWE has done such a thing (usually they just refer to the US airdates), and it's 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. However, when
Channel 4 decided to drop Heat from their programming in late 2001, Sky picked the show up and now air the US version. In June 2008, the show will be replaced by a new series of "WWE Classics". It will be shown in all the timeslots that WWE Heat had once occupied on Sky Sports 2, 3 & Xtra.
Commentator history
Further Information
Get more info on 'Wwe Heat'.
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