Ongoing Attempts, Volume 8: From Jonas Valančiūnas to Hangman Adam Page

"Heat" in wrestling refers to the ability to get strong crowd reactions. If a wrestler has a lot of heat, that person will be on the receiving end of loud cheers or boos. Oftentimes you associate "a lot of heat" with a heel, a bad guy who is greeted with sneers and taunts and chants.

If you're in the building for a segment that involves a heel with a lot of heat, it's really fun. It also makes you appreciate just how loud the crowd can get when almost every single person is making noise.

With the NBA season starting up this past week, I wanted to revisit an experience I had in a loud building last season. This one wasn't wrestling. It involved Jonas Valančiūnas, then a member of the Denver Nuggets, and the home crowd that was cheering for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

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Making people mad on purpose, with a purpose

Let's start with a fun example of what it sounds like when wrestlers generate a lot of heat.

In the spirit of offering up an example that has crossover appeal with wrestling and sports fans, listen to the crowd during this WWE segment in Seattle. Elias and Kevin Owens poke fun at the departed Seattle Supersonics, and the building shakes with disapproval.

Now for the time that I was in the building for some NBA heat. I went to Target Center last season for a Saturday night game between the Minnesota Timberwolves versus the Denver Nuggets.

Throughout the game, Denver's backup center Jonas Valančiūnas earned the ire of the hometown crowd. As befits a rugged bench player, he mixed it up down low, made some tough plays, and tangled up with a couple Timberwolves.

At one point, Valančiūnas and Timberwolves' reserve Naz Reid engaged in a little shoving match. Nothing more than the tension one expects to see in a rivalry game, but certainly a moment that added "big Val" to the ranks of villains in the eyes of the Minneapolis crowd.

Getting loud for free food

Now let me tell you about the "Bricken for Chicken" promotion. In partnership with Chick-fil-A, the Timberwolves run the following deal during home games: if a player on the opposing team misses two free throws in a row in the fourth quarter, everyone gets a free chicken sandwich.

In an action-packed game that was important to both teams, there were loud reactions from the crowd all night. It was a fired up crowd that wanted the home team to win their fifth straight game. That said, the heat in that building went way up in the fourth quarter.

You had the occasional standing ovation over the course of the game to that point, with a mix of fans standing and sitting. It was loud, but not everyone yelled or stood up. But when Jonas Valančiūnas stepped to the free throw line in the fourth quarter? Not a Timberwolves fan in sight was sitting down. Everyone stood. Everyone yelled. It was really loud.

Big Val missed his first free throw. The Minneapolis faithful could taste it. A chicken sandwich was in their future. It would be worth it to wait until Monday, with the chain famously closed on Sundays. They rocked the Target Center to coax a second miss out of the Nuggets' backup center.

It was the loudest the building had been all night, and that includes a really cool pregame production on "Prince night."

Jonas Valančiūnas calmly swished the second free throw home. Cementing his status as a heel on this night, he gave the crowd the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag.

The heat in the building reached a level worthy of the best bad guys in wrestling. Just look at this young fan's reaction.

It's an interesting dynamic, the spike in crowd noise from this promotion. I suppose it's as simple as fans cheering when they might get something out of it. If they are loud at other points in the game, they only get the lofty and abstract feeling of pride if their team plays well. But if they are loud in these very specific moments, they might get a chicken sandwich.

There's some credit due to the people behind the promotion, at least the people on the Timberwolves' side of things. Much like a wrestling promoter or an individual wrestler putting together a promo, those people are charged with identifying and implementing ideas to fire up the crowd. In this case, they found a way to maximize the noise and to hold those big pops for the fourth quarter.

After all, even in an important regular season game, there was a certain levity to the whole "Bricken for Chicken" situation. Big Val was able to take a chance to joke around and taunt the crowd, something he might not do in an actual playoff game. But the promotion presumably continues apace in the actual postseason when those fourth quarter free throws are an even bigger deal.

I suppose the team doesn't care why the crowd rocks the house in those key moments. As long as they will stand and boo and jeer for each and every fourth quarter free throw from the opposing team, the promotion will be successful for the Timberwolves.

That's exactly what happened on that Saturday night last season. It was another successful "Bricken for Chicken" promotion, even if it might have left Naz Reid wondering why it wasn't that loud when he got shoved by the other team.

Two Halloween videos, and one bonus video

I was scared of so many things when I was a kid. I am still scared of many things.

I was not a fan of Halloween when I was a kid. I am still not a fan of Halloween.

I mostly don't like Halloween because I didn't like having those scared feelings ramped up for days and weeks on end.

That's the baggage I bring to Halloween each year, which I mostly keep to myself these days so that I don't ruin it for my kids. I'll save ruining it for them for when they are older and not cute about it anymore.

Anyway, you certainly have gathered by now that my capacity for enjoying this stupid holiday is limited. Specifically, it is limited to two videos.

I love both of these videos and think they are perfect Halloween videos. The first one has more than 27 million views on YouTube, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here.

The original David Pumpkins sketch on Saturday Night Live will always bring me joy.

Over in All Elite Wrestling, they have had fun with a number of Halloween angles. None will ever top this one, which includes Excalibur, their play-by-play announcer, selling it 100% when he yells, "Who is the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?!?"

That match occurred in the run-up to Hangman Adam Page winning the AEW World Championship for the first time. The build to his championship match against Kenny Omega also included two of the finest entrances that you'll ever see in professional wrestling, which brings us to this bonus video.

There are so many great details in both of those entrances. The Young Bucks are introduced as each being 6'6". Don Callis is wearing dress shoes with his short-shorts and clipboard as the Elite's coach. "You don't need a hat to be a cowboy" is an excellent line that still lives on in the form of a t-shirt.

But nothing beats the volume of the crowd's cheers when Hangman walks out of that tunnel. That moment brings me right back to being part of the fan base that was fully behind him as the good guy trying to overcome the bad guys and his own demons. It was just an amazing story with an amazing babyface.

If you ever want a happy YouTube wormhole, go watch some videos of Hangman Adam Page chasing Kenny Omega and the AEW championship in 2021. And if anyone ever asks you what Jonas Valančiūnas could possibly have to do with Hangman Adam Page, you can send them this newsletter.