Professional
wrestling terminology.
One easy measurement of how well a
sports entertainer is doing his job is to watch and listen to the crowd's reaction to his words and actions. A good
babyface generates
face pop, while a good heel generates
heel heat. A bad wrestler generates either no reaction or
'get out of the arena' heat.
With such an obvious guide to the success or failure of their attempts at getting
over with the crowd, it's no surprise that many
face wrestlers fall back on the
cheap pop to get the crowd working.
But what is a cheap pop? Answer: If we are in
Madison Square Garden,
NYC - any of the following:
"Punk, i'm going to hit you harder than a Mike Piazza home-run!" *crowd pops*
"How dare you come HERE...into the home of wrestling...into MADISON SQUARE GARDEN..." *crowd explodes* "...and threaten me!"
"So tonight, right here in the home of the NBA Champion New York Knicks.." (I can dream, can't I?)
*crowd collectively orgasms*
Of course, wrestling fans are also a tremendously loyal bunch when it comes to their favoured
promotion, so this will also get a huge (but cheap) pop:
"It seems that everybody forgot about the tribe of Extreme...it seems that everybody forgot about E...C...W!" *crowd (well, me) pops unbelievably*
Mick Foley is the king of the cheap pop, and acknowledges it. Mick's trademark cheap pop always (and
The Rock means ALWAYS) goes like this:
"And so, I have decided that RIGHT HERE IN TACOMA, WASHINGTON..." *crowd dies from sheer joy/Mick grins and sticks thumbs up* "...you WILL defend that WWF Championship belt!"
The
heel version of cheap pop is
cheap heat.