WWE’s comments on blood in AEW indicates a greater problem

On July 25th, WWE held an investors call where they discussed the business of WWE. Amidst this discussion about the numbers, Vince McMahon made comments concerning blood in wrestling, directly targeting AEW.

While the major story coming out of the investors’ call is the decrease in revenue and in WWE Network numbers, the comments about blood in wrestling and how AEW have used it was one of the first times that Vince McMahon officially acknowledged AEW as competition.

The audio of the investors’ call can be heard here and it’s quite interesting, to say the least. Part of the discussion concerning AEW came about when he was asked about the WWE product remaining PG. The direct quotes concerning AEW are as follows:

"We’re going to be a bit edgier, but still remain in the PG environment. We won’t come anywhere close to going into another level. That will be something we do in terms of the direction of content, more controversy, and better storylines. At the same time, we’re not going to go back to the Attitude Era. We’re not going to do blood and guts, such as being done on perhaps a new potential competitor. We’re not going to go back to that gory crap that we graduated from. It’s a more sophisticated product."

And later in the call:

"As far as competition is concerned, the old adage is ‘competition is good for everyone,’ I think that’s generally the case. We’re hoping that, to the extent that they are competition, they don’t continue with the blood and guts and gory things that they have been doing, which would be bad. I can’t imagine, I can’t speak for TNT, but I can’t imagine they would put up with that."

There are a lot of things here that can be pointed out, but I will only examine a few. First, WWE isn’t above using blood when it serves them. We have seen this several times in the last few years with the prime example being in the Randy Orton vs. Brock Lesnar match at SummerSlam 2016.

Though, the way they got to this blood is far more disturbing than the blood itself. Vince McMahon designed the match so that Randy Orton would be cut open with legitimate elbows from Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar, being an actual trained MMA fighter, knows how to strike to cause bleeding and damage. At Vince’s instruction, Brock and Randy agreed to a spot that saw Lesnar smashing Randy Orton with elbows from a mounted position. Orton’s head had nowhere to go, and he was bleeding everywhere soon thereafter.

Orton needed 10 staples to the head for the cut, and he was dealt a legitimate concussion. A concussion that WWE tried to cover up. Orton, while not cleared to wrestle, continued to deliver RKO’s on TV and live events, which is ridiculous when you consider that any bump could make the concussion worse.

This is WWE’s idea of a more sophisticated product. The comments made by Vince McMahon were in reference to the fantastic Dustin Rhodes vs. Cody match from Double or Nothing that saw Dustin bleeding a lot due to using a razor blade to put a small cut on his forehead.

To date, this is the only match that saw blood in AEW like this. Even the match between Joey Janela and Jon Moxley only saw minimal blood due to thumbtacks in the back of Janela and a few spots with barbed wire boards. WWE has Brock Lesnar draw blood by concussing Randy Orton, and had Chris Jericho land in a pile of thumbtacks after a match with Dean Ambrose.

WWE thinks blading is barbaric, and shouldn’t be done in wrestling. On a personal note, I do agree that blading is unneeded and should only be done rarely. Once in a while in a big match is fine, but I would still prefer the usage of fake blood instead. With that being said, which is more barbaric? Having Brock Lesnar legitimately draw blood the hard way, or having Dustin Rhodes use a blade to have a small cut that bleeds a lot but don’t cause any permanent damage?

Naturally, after making these comments, Vince McMahon had an angle that saw Seth Rollins bleeding from the mouth on Raw. The blood in this angle was likely fake, which is good, but still rings as hypocritical. Vince often thinks the rules he lays out don’t apply to him, and this seems to be another example of it.

However, the comments about AEW and “blood and guts” wrestling may have a more sinister angle to it than initially thought. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, it may have been an attempt to tell advertisers that it isn’t something they want to be associated with:

"The belief in the advertising community is that Vince was trying to bury them with the advertising community and that they were doing wrestling that you shouldn’t advertise on. Some people say it’s a dirty trick, but it’s Vince. You’re in a war with Vince, and this is what Vince is going to do. The people in the advertising community that talk to me said, “What a dirty trick.” It’s a wrestling war! In the real world it’s a dirty trick, but this is wrestling. This is how Vince is going to react."

In the end, it’s just business. Vince wanted to take a shot at them and try to hurt their reputation in the advertising community. This demonstrates Vince’s consistent attempts to criticize his competition while doing the same thing on his own show. The greater problem is that Vince expects to not be called out it. If he is against blood in wrestling, why do it on the very next show that aired after the conference call?

Vince, in this case, is not only trying to play a dirty trick, but he is dangerously arrogant concerning his own product. To show this much hubris, to criticize AEW for something that he does himself when he wants to, tells us that Vince is quite tone deaf.

In the end, Vince was trying to hurt his competition, but if the advertisers he was trying to sway away from AEW watched Raw, he may have only hurt his own product. While I don’t expect any repercussions for his comments, the fact that he made them and then did the same thing on his own show shows an arrogance that might lead to trouble down the road.

Regardless, criticizing AEW for graphic blood while doing an angle with graphic blood doesn’t reflect well on the way Vince McMahon thinks.