Historically, another common practice of villains to draw cheap heat involves using racial and ethnic slurs to offend the collective sensibility of wrestling fans.
[5] In April 2006 during his feud with Shawn Michaels, Mr. McMahon used religion and the city to get heat from the crowd in St. Louis, Missouri by saying he went to hell that morning when his driver "got lost and ended up in East St.
During the Royal Rumble match in January,[14] Justice – who had become popular due to his charisma – was loudly cheered when he eliminated Hulk Hogan, and commentators Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon picked up on this as a fair act.
Before SmackDown went live in 2016,[16] WWE usually overdubbed cheers on it and professional wrestling magazine Power Slam joked that the company has had to "fire up the Fake Crowd Roar Machine™ to add an artificial atmosphere".
This concept would end up being used outside of professional wrestling such as the National Hockey League during the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs as the COVID-19 pandemic hit United States and Canada that impacted the sporting world.
The crowd noise was provided by Electronic Arts, combined with recordings of team-specific chants by season ticketholders of participating teams in bubble cities in Edmonton and Toronto (the latter of which was also played in-arena).
Notorious examples of the concept are The Rock as Rocky Maivia, X-Pac (who popularized the term in the early 2000s so much that go away heat is also known as "X-Pac heat"), Triple H, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Lita, Stephanie McMahon, Michael Cole in 2011, and more recently Roman Reigns (see Persona and reception of Roman Reigns), Baron Corbin, Gable Steveson, Nia Jax, Logan Paul, Karrion Kross, Austin Theory, and Charlotte Flair.
[25] Hyped as the WWF's first third-generation wrestler,[26] Maivia was a clean-cut heroic character who was pushed heavily from the start and won the Intercontinental Championship despite his wrestling inexperience.
[25] The Rock would eventually become the Nation's leader and draw good heat, then starting getting cheered while still being a villain before being officially turned back into a fan favorite character by September 1998.
[25][45][46] Despite getting some mixed reactions and being booed a few times in 2001 and 2002, most notably against Austin in the main event of WrestleMania X-Seven at Austin's home state,[47] "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania X8[48] and Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam,[49] The Rock would never draw go away heat and would instead use both the fans turning on him and him getting more successful in his actor career to turn back into a villain in 2003 to end his full-time career,[50][51] before becoming once again a fan favorite ever since 2004.
Between 1999 and 2001, Triple H had a successful run as the main villain of the WWF[57]—especially in 2000, when he became the first villain to win the main event of WrestleMania and thus retain the WWF Championship,[58] as well as winning the "Feud of the Year" award by both PWI (with Kurt Angle)[59] and WON (with Mick Foley) and the WON "Wrestler of the Year" award[60] due his accomplishments and performances.
main eventer who went on to hold the WWE Championship for 280 days (the longest reign in a decade) is often seen as go away heat due to the push being perceived as forced and undeserving.
[87] Cena would also win his first world title to a pop from the crowd, eventually surpassing Batista's popularity in 2005 that would see him being moved from SmackDown to the Raw brand.
[89][90][91][92] In the following years, Cena would get mostly real "mixed reaction" rather than go away heat, oftentimes still getting more cheers than boos, with the notorious exception of Rob Van Dam's Money in the Bank cash-in at ECW's One Night Stand (with ECW being Van Dam's "home promotion"),[93][94] Tables, Ladders and Chairs match against Edge at Unforgiven in Edge's hometown[95][96] and against CM Punk at Money in the Bank in CM Punk's hometown.
[97][98] Eventually, by the 2010s he would be reevaluated (ironically, also due Reigns being described as "even worse") and getting more cheers, especially during his run as United States Champion in 2015[99] and even when winning his 16th world championship against popular and respected veteran AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble in January 2017.
[102] By late 2013, Reigns would be getting the biggest push between the three members of The Shield (Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins), as he got to win as sole survivor his Survivor Series 5-on-5 Survivor Series match and the most elimination at 4,[103] being the only member of The Shield to defeat CM Punk[104] and breaking another record at the Royal Rumble for the most eliminations in a single Royal Rumble match at 12, also eliminating both Ambrose and Rollins from the match and ending up being the runner-up (Reigns would get cheered over eventual winner Batista, as fans wanted fan favorite and popular Daniel Bryan to win instead of Batista),[105][106] being eventually billed as the leader of The Shield during their feud with Evolution (Batista, Randy Orton and Triple H) between April and May 2014.
[138][139] It should also be noted that "business went up" with Cena,[140] who has been also one of the best merchandising seller in WWE history,[141] whereas the period in which WWE tried to push Reigns as the new face of the company and gave him multiple coronations at WrestleMania saw a much quicker decline in Raw viewership by late 2015,[142] when Reigns was made the number one contender for the world title in October[143][144] and eventually winning the title three times between November 2015 and April 2016.
After beating Bálor, Reigns was again heavily booed by the crowd, which increased in intensity after the match when Braun Strowman attempted to cash in his Money in the Bank title shot.
Reigns initially received a mixed reaction upon entering the arena, but was welcomed with a positive reception after his announcement of leukemia was made.