At
Double or Nothing, Dustin Rhodes was busted open during his match with Cody Rhodes and ended up bleeding profusely throughout the rest of the match. It was a somewhat distressing sight but one welcomed by the vast majority of fans who are sick of WWE's PG product.
Now, All Elite Wrestling star and Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes has weighed in on the inclusion of blood in the company from here.
"Well, this is a bigger conversation but I’ll bring it up. Wrestling fans and wrestling analysts have debated how they analyze wrestling. Do they analyze it as sport or do they analyze it as entertainment? I’m not going to tell you which it is because everyone should already know which it is. Which means we should be held to the same standard that Hollywood, that movies, that TV, that Broadway [are]. I don’t mean to sound pretentious in saying that but we should be held to those same standards. When it comes to violence in our industry, when it comes to blood, when it comes to those things it should never be a topic but I love that it is and I understand why. But when it comes up it just … You’ve got to pick a lane. If that makes any sense…
"This isn’t ballet, in terms of the physical side of it. It can get rather hairy and I did not anticipate the amount of blood, but if you’re looking for violence and physical storytelling that’s a big part of what AEW is going to bring. There’s not any guidelines to how our pay-per-views are going to be. They’re treated as a sport-centric product. You can see it in the NBA Finals, somebody gets their eye busted. You see it in boxing, somebody gets a hematoma on their forehead. It happens and it will happen at AEW."
It's easy enough to see where Cody is coming from here and it will be interesting seeing whether blood plays a role in AEW's weekly show, especially as it will be on TNT. Something Cody doesn't make clear is whether blading will now be a common practice but there's certainly something to be said about AEW standing out for being a lot more real and sports-like.
What are your thoughts on the possibility of blood being a regular part of AEW programming? Let us know your thoughts in the usual place.