With the 1000th episode of “Monday Night Raw” coming up this upcoming week, I thought we’d take a trip down memory lane in WWE history. “WWF Sunday Night Heat” debuted in 1998 to capitalize on the enormous success of the wrestling boom and to compete with the likes of main events on “WCW Saturday Night” like Roadblock vs. Ice Train. (Spoiler: Ice Train wins.) So the WWF decided to roll out “Heat” on the USA Network and try to take it those bastards in Georgia. I’m not going to say “Heat” was the reason that WWE won the war, but it really put butts in the seats, except during “Halftime Heat.”
See? Tony Schiavone, Foley can't draw.
Heat was high profile for a little while, and continued stories and feuds from Monday night. It remained that way for a while, even finding it landing on MTV for a three year run. Heat at the point in 2003 when it left MTV had essentially become a low level show with little going on. Since its inception, The WWE created “Smackdown” to air on Thursday nights and “Velocity” to air on Saturday. The WWE was flooding the airwaves with programming and Heat would soon be relegated to WWE.com by 2005. “Sunday Night Heat” lasted until 2008, when it was finally put out of its misery. It had a total of 513 episodes, making it the longest running weekly episodic wrestling show on Sunday nights that has featured a match between Scorpio and Mark Henry.
Ric Flair was so excited about that match.
The show was a big deal at first, but as mentioned, “Smackdown” beginning in 1999 really took wind from the sails on Sunday night. This down turn took place after the aforementioned “Halftime Heat.” This was one of the biggest things ever. They managed to garner a 6.6 in the ratings. To explain that, during the freaking Super Bowl, the WWF managed to pull six and a half million people for an empty arena match between the Rock, Mankind, and a forklift. That’s just counting the people watching with that inefficient little Nielsen box. The WWF was a big deal at the time.
Enter MTV. A little late to the party, but “Heat” went over to boy band central in 2000 and lasted until 2003. Another new addition to the show was the new hip location the show was brought to the viewers from. “WWF New York” was a nice little place for people in Times Square to come eat overpriced chicken fingers and watch Chris Kanyon yammer on about something or other some weeks. This money dump was closed the same year “Heat” left MTV, and was a fun place to waste time at in between matches on Sunday. It really only came in handy for action in the WWE video game releases.
See? Beating up Rikishi in the kitchen. You can't top that with anything less than a helicopter in Times Square.
After the mega popularity of the late 90s and the booming business in the early 2000s, “Heat” was put heavy on the back burner after two years on TNN being nothing more than a showcase for Val Venis. That was more than appropriate as both had decreased in value about the same amount since 1998. Once WWE made up with their long time carrier USA, “Heat” was dumped and forced to move online. There Heat quietly plugged along as the B show for “Raw” and did little of note. Never were the days of Kane hitting the Big Show with a wrench captured again. Oh well, the show had a long run and if anything, a hat can be hung on being the show that saw Essa Rios beat Gillberg for the Light heavyweight Championship. Kudos “Heat,” you are sorely missed. It did leave us with the coolest looking of all the HD sets though.
Look! It's Justin Roberts!
Credit goes to: WWE.com, Youtube.com, Photobucket.com, Wikipedia.org, and vgarchive.org.