WWE Heat

WWE Heat was a professional wrestling show made by World Wrestling Entertainment.

During its televised history in the United States, it was shown on the USA Network, MTV and Spike TV.

From 2005 to 2008, it was streamed on WWE.com on Fridays for North American viewers, but it was still televised internationally. The final episode was streamed on May 30, 2008.

Internationally it was replaced by WWE Vintage Collection a program which featured matches from past WWE events and hosted by WWE 2006 Hall of Fame inductee "Mean" Gene Okerlund.

History
1998
The show made its debut on August 2, 1998 on the USA Network as WWF Sunday Night Heat. It began as the second most important show in WWF Programming, after WWF Monday Night Raw. Heat would feature backstage interview segments and in-ring action. Main event stars such as The Rock, Mankind and Triple H would appear often to help further the storylines which occurred on Monday Night Raw. Heat itself led to a big ratings draw for the USA Network.

1999-2002
When SmackDown! was created in 1999, Heat's importance lowered as well as ratings. With the debut of SmackDown!, it led to Heat being taped before SmackDown! When  SmackDown! debuted in August 1999, it briefly became a recap show, with exclusive interviews and feuds from the past of WWF Programming being made into music videos. That lasted only a couple of weeks, and it then returned to airing exclusive matches.

The WWF also aired two Halftime HEAT television specials, which aired during Super Bowl XXXIII on the USA Network. During this period the show moved to MTV as part of a deal between Viacom and the WWE. When the show moved to MTV, it began broadcasting live from WWF New York.

2002-2005
In 2002, the show reverted to its previous format of taping the matches before Raw. Since the brand extension in 2002  Heat became exclusive to the Raw brand, the only exception being pay-per-view nights, which were broadcast live from the PPV venues and could involve wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand.

In 2002 SmackDown! branched off its own secondary show, Velocity, which mirrored the same format as Heat.

2005-2008
Heat and Velocity were not picked up by the USA Network when WWE moved Raw back to the USA Network in October 2005. That left Americans no way of watching the weekend programmes on Television. WWE then decided to begin streaming those programs on WWE.com exclusively for the audience in the United States. Sunday Night Heat soon was renamed WWE Heat as it no longer aired on Sundays.

Heat was still broadcast internationally because of previous commitments. For a short time, a special 30-minute live edition of Heat began airing in place of the traditional pretaped Free For All PPV pre-show. That lasted from No Mercy 2005 to Backlash 2006.

When WWE began airing in high definition, Heat began using the same set as Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW.

The final episode was streamed on WWE.com on May 30, 2008. It was replaced internationally by WWE Vintage Collection.

Commentator history
 Commentator Year(s) Active Shane McMahon 1998 Jim Cornette 1998 - 1999 Michael Cole 1998 - 2002, 2005 Kevin Kelly 1998 - 2000 Michael Hayes 1999 - 2002 Dan Jackson 1999 Tazz 2000 - 2001 Jonathan Coachman 2001 - 2007 Raven 2001 - 2002 Al Snow 2001 - 2004 Chris Leary 2001 Marc Lloyd 2002 - 2005 D'Lo Brown 2002 - 2003 Lita 2002 - 2003 Todd Grisham 2004 - 2008 Lisa Moretti 2004 - 2005 Joey Styles 2006 Steve Romero 2006 Jack Korpela 2007 - 2008Josh Mathews 2007 - 2008 

Related pages
WWE Raw

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