For many people, Super Bowl XXXIII is best remembered as legendary quarterback John Elway’s last NFL game. Elway went out a winner, too, leading the Broncos to their second consecutive Super Bowl victory while earning MVP honors in the process. Sounds like the kind of perfect ending you only see in pro wrestling, right?
Well, for wrestling fans, this night still lives on 27 years for a totally different reason: the World Wrestling Federation. The WWF, now WWE, was hotter than they’d ever been in January of 1999. In an attempt to counterprogram The Big Game’s halftime show, the WWE produced its own show, Halftime Heat, which aired on the USA Network.
So if you wanted to watch some ‘rasslin instead of Gloria Estefan, Stevie Wonder, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, you had that option. Because who doesn’t love options?
Reliving The Rock vs. Mankind at Halftime Heat 1999
While the idea wasn’t new—In Living Color had done something similar in 1992—the WWE decided to go all out to see how big a splash they could make. Their plan? Have The Rock, the WWE’s biggest star at the time, wrestle Mankind in an “Empty Arena Match.” And yes, that match is exactly what it sounds like.
Simply put, the move was genius. WWE could pre-tape the match, ensuring that it fit the allotted time slot perfectly. And because the arena was legitimately empty during the taping, the two could have their match all over the Tucson Convention Center without any spoilers leaking online.
Even better, Mankind and The Rock could take advantage of all of massive, empty building and wrestle all over the arena… and that they did. This approach, combined with some wacky camera shots that were precursors to the eventual cinematic matches we saw from WWE during COVID-19, created something that is still pretty awesome to watch almost 3 decades later.
The fan-favorite, the lovable Mankind, would go on to capture the WWE Championship from The Rock during the match. A title change on Sunday Night Heat, a show that doesn’t even exist anymore, wasn’t a normal occurrence, even in 1999. But again, WWE knew this was a huge opportunity, so they went all out trying to create some buzz.
The next few years would be extremely profitable for the company, so, at worst, it did no harm.
Sadly, the WWE has never really been able to recapture this kind of Super Bowl-centered magic again. They did another Halftime Heat special in 2000, but the show was centered around an interview with a legitimately injured Stone Cold Steve Austin. While fans loved The Rattlesnake, it wasn’t as exciting as the Empty Arena Match from the year prior, sadly.
20 years later, in 2019, WWE had an actual match during the Super Bowl again, this time featuring NXT talent. The six-man tag match saw Aleister Black, Ricochet, and Velveteen Dream take on Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa. The match itself was solid, but again, nowhere near as exciting or memorable as the original 1999 event.
Anyone nostalgic for the late 90s or WWE’s Attitude Era probably remembers watching Halftime Heat. After all, nearly 11 million people flipped over to watch Mankind defeat The Rock for the title that night. It was one of the biggest highlights of the year, featuring two of the biggest stars of the era. And it ruled so hard.
So, will we ever see something like that during the Super Bowl again? I wouldn’t bet on it, to be honest. But thanks to the WWE Vault, WWE’s incredible nostalgia-filled YouTube channel, you can watch the first Halftime Heat whenever you’d like to relive the madness.
The post Remembering WWE’s Incredible ‘Halftime Heat’ Super Bowl Show 27 Years Later appeared first on VICE.
