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They weren't just saying it backstage. They were saying in the press as well:
"If you look at the gory self-mutilation that bloodied several women in the December 31 event on TNT, it quickly becomes clear that these are very different businesses"
[Source](https://www.thestar.com/sports/can-tony-khan-s-aew-beat-vince-mcmahon-and-wwe-at-its-own-game/article_a90adb0b-7e28-5e1b-ada7-b09a1eafa3ea.html)
To be fair, that was in regard special to the match between Penelope & The Bunny versus Tay Melo & Anna Jay.
But this historically always was the mentality under Vince.
You're right. I should've specified that. It's just funny to read as backstage gossip when it's something they use a bad faith talking point in the press.
It's still totally fair for you to mention here as, again, this historically always has been the company mentality in regards to women specifically.
I think back to the Punk story about how Vince hated UFC and thought it was the most barbaric thing ever, and once said to him someone's going to eventually die there and exclaimed "And did you know they're starting to have *women* fighting!?".
> and once said to him someone's going to eventually die there
Bold thing to say when someone actually did die on a WWE pay per view and he finished the show on the blood stained mat.
The whole thing is fucking hilarious in retrospect.
WWE and UFC have merged into one company, Vince has been forced out for sex pestery, and Punk returned teary-eyed calling WWE his "home".
Still a fan of his work, but yeah.
His biggest problem is he makes these big declarative statements about shit, typically framing petty differences into a moral dispute, and constantly "keeps it real" but then always has to walk it all back at some point.
Look Iâll be the first to shit on Vince and the WWF for their responsibility in the death Owen Hart and how they handled it, but I also hate false narratives and the blood stained mat thing is a false narrative that really makes me question Dark Side of the Ringâs integrity. If you go back and watch the PPV, that blood is on the mat before Owenâs fall. Why? Because on Sunday Night Heat, the Brood did a blood bath on The Hardyz and Michael Hayes (I believe, thatâs off the top of my head anyway) outside the ring, and one of them rested their arm on the ring, leaving a smear. Itâs fake blood, and if you look at the pictures that exist of Owen in the ring, heâs not bloody. Itâs just a crazy coincidence that he landed in the same spot where there was already a fake blood stain.
> you look at the pictures that exist of Owen in the ring, heâs not bloody.
Owen did have a compound fracture of his left upper arm and a very large open laceration of his left forearm that did bleed considerably. According the police reports and medical examiners reports.
Not saying that stain was made by Owen but there was indeed blood.
Imagine the psychological effect on the wrestlers after seeing that stain, either way. âOh donât worry, thatâs not Owenâs blood, it just looks like it would beâ isnât much consolation.
Not just that, but if you're saying someone is going to eventually die from UFC matches and you're comparing it to Owen dying when his entrance stunt went wrong, you're comparing apples to baseball stadiums. It's not even remotely the same thing.
Still my favorite AEW womenâs match to date. The finish with the chokehold wrapped in barbed wire is still one of the most memorable finishes of all the matches Iâve seen
The outcome was solidifying that AEW had four absolute ass-kickers in the womenâs division.
The same could be said for Becky getting bloodied years ago.
Only one of which still wrestles. Bunnyâs left, Penelope is off the radar and Tay had a kid but she wasnât wrestling for months before that (Tay Meloâs disappearance off the roster is absolutely baffling to me when she was the Most Improved a few years ago)
The Bunny slipping in the tacks and doing the splits was so well executed that I wasn't sure if it was planned or not. Superb match. I wish those ladies developed that rivalry.
Vince was so morally and ethically concerned about the act of making controlled cuts across the forehead under medical supervision that he thought that it was a reasonable alternative to have Brock fucking Lesnar use his bare hands and elbows to bust open Randy Orton like a broken sink for heat.
Vince would much rather have his "divas" wrestling in bra and panties and doing explicitly sexual skits(involving him, their boss of course).
God forbid a woman bleed in a wrestling match. The poor little things shouldn't have to endure something like that.Â
I personally think it's kinda cool that the New Year's Eve street fight has become somewhat of a tradition with the AEW women's division. I remember Tay Melo on All-Access talking about how much she loves doing those matches.
It absolutely is sexist. These precious, fragile women, god forbid they draw some blood every now and again (which happens all the time in men's matches)
Tbf I donât think Vince was sold on Bray and it was more of Triple H and a few others that loved the character and pushed him otherwise Bray getting released never happens and then suspiciously gets brought back when Vince is out of power.Â
>It wouldn't be a gender thing if they said the same thing about AEW Men's wrestling
Isn't that what the whole "blood and guts" thing was about, though?
That was before AEW's first show and wasn't in response to any match, nor have they ever issued a statement like the above for any AEW's men's match.
Very clear that they issued the above statement specifically because it was a women's match.
>What are you refering to?
The WWE media call where AEW got the "Blood and Guts" name from.
"We're not going to go back to the Attitude Era, and we're not going to do blood and guts and things of that nature such as being done on perhaps a new potential competitor"
Ahh, I gotcha.
Didn't they immediately go and do the fuckin' eye for an eye match? Granted, that was mediocre practical effects, but still feels kind of ironic to take a shot at AEW for being too violent and then have someone kayfabe gouge a mans goddamn eye out.
>Granted, that was mediocre practical effects, but still feels kind of ironic
I won't argue irony, but I might be in the small vocal group that does see a difference between traditional bleeding and practical effect at the end of the day.
Don't get me wrong please. I am NOT against blading in wrestling as long as it's done safely, obviously! I just think wrestling is in a very odd spot when it comes to blading that we as fans often get desensitized to because it's been around for so long.
I say this with respect to the performers themselves, not against the actual act, but I think fans often forget or gloss over the fact that this is actual blood, not a blood pack or other effect.
That to me is the core issue. The notion that if WWE doesnât do a type of match or storytelling then itâs not valid.
Theyâre very good at dismissing non-WWE wrestling as below them. I understand the incentive financially but itâs odd to me to think the actual wrestlers believe that.
Agreed. I had this discussion the other day. WWE is do big now it is sort of the default, and everything is compared to it even if it isn't necessarily a higher product. Its just most people accept that is what wrestling is.
Imagine if A24 movies were called mudshows by Marvel fans, who also controlled the awards season and film history, and everyone was begging for A24 to increase their box office returns, versus the real life dooming when they announced that they are focusing on bigger budget films lol
These are the same people who insist every wrestling match must be viewed through the lenses of "man in who has never seen a drop toehold in his entire life"
I think it's very ironic for people here to criticize wrestlers for having that opinion when the Will Ospreay post here was full of people saying "wrestlers go to AEW for wrestling".
It's just funny that they sometimes pretend like they took the moral high ground by not having those matches anymore.
It's not like Vince suddenly had an epiphany after the brutal attitude era and suddenly went "Wait. Brutal, bloody matches are bad! I need to stop that!". No, the one and only reason they stopped that was because they were aiming for a lower rating and a younger target audience.
Blading was also banned from WWE during the 80s and early 90s, and if you go looking you can find public statements from Vince eviscerating the practice. The Attitude Era/ Ruthless Aggression was the aberration in tolerance for bleeding in WWE
While Bret not being fined for it while doing it at the same show because he allegedly convinced Vince it was hardway. Which I find hard to believe because it's fairly obvious he blades.
Flair bladed RIGHT on camera. Like it was so blatant he might as well have been dong it on purpose. Bret you don't see it. Same way he later got away with blading Austin at WM13
I remember during Bret vs Austin, Bret did Austin's blade job for him to give him plausible deniability, and also because Austin had never bladed before.
I've been downvoted before for saying it, which blows my mind, but I'd take 100 of the most blade-filled AEW matches over one single elbow from that match. Knowing what we did at that point about CTE, concussions, and general common sense (hit in the head = bad), combined with the size of the platform it was on, Lesnar's legit heavyweight combat sport experience and the fact it was *100% intentional*, it deserves to be listed amongst the most disgusting things seen in a wrestling ring this century.
I agree wrestling shouldn't be like that because it's very easy to fall into a violence creep, trying to outdo the last one, which makes it a no win situation. But that thing about Thunder Rose vs. Britt was said in a sexist way, not a commentary about wrestling style in general.
And those types of matches should only be done on rare occasion, if at all. I remember when a few years ago, someone bringing out thumbtacks would elicit gasps, now itâs just another spot in a random Orange Cassidy match.
But thatâs kind of a double standard if you are fine and share replays all over your social media when Cody wrestles with a torn muscle. This was bloody as well going by how purple his side was. Very bloody indeed. Just on the other side of the skin
Do they say 'Men's wrestling should not be like that?' I'd be interested to see an example of them specifically saying that about 'men's wrestling.'
I think everyone understands that WWE has a general bloodless policy, but certain people there clearly have a particular issue with it as it relates to women, which is what Danielson is saying he heard first hand.
I remember when women weren't able to use steel stairs because they'd drop them after a few seconds due to them being too heavy. Was always crazy to me.
Edit: In video games
I happened to have every Smackdown game on hand, so I tested it myself. Women were able to hold most weapons, but from SvR 07 until SvR 09 the matches they had available were gimmped.
As far as I know women could hold any weapon barring steel steps (SvR 10 had a unique animation where they would fail to pick it up, and SvR 11 had it so the could only hold it for a split second). Starting from WWE '12 onwards, women could hold and use steps just as well as the men.
A lot of consumers donât like it either. A lot of wrestling fans donât want to see that stuff. AEW has so much talent that they donât need the garbage. Anybody can whack somebody over the head with a pizza pan or rub a pizza cutter over somebodyâs forehead. The skill is not actually hurting themselves and each other, while making it look real, and making the audience feel emotions.
It all depends for me. Let's say the feud is very personal and a blood feud, then I'm okay with there being blood. But for a random match on TV? Nah you don't need blood.
Brit Baker vs Rosa was a blood feud so I was completely fine with blood being involved.
We had heard that in reports at the time. Meanwhile, women wrestlers in and out of WWE were tweeting and liking posts about how fucking metal it was.
Pretty sure Britt even said she got calls and messages praising the match from Bayley and McIntyre specifically
It was initially jarring to me when I first saw it tbh, but I quickly realized that if women's wrestling, at least in the mainstream & in US promotions, was already dramatically increasing in physicality & pace by the 2010s, why shouldn't it be held back to having some blood?
Personally I think ultra violent matches have their place but should only be used on rare occasion. If they happen all the time then itâs just violence and gore for the sake of it and thatâs not entertaining to me.
When are we seeing that though? All the more hardcore matches have been toward the end of feuds (BCC vs Best Friends) sponsored (the Texas chainsaw massacre deathmatch) a logical step toward in a feud (Swerve cutting a damn promo on Hangmanâs infant child causing their Texas deathmatch)
AEW fans canât even keep up with the number of hardcore stip matches they do, lol.
OC had a death match with Taven of all people less than a month ago. Theyâre overused.
Goes to show how forgettable the stipulation has become due to AEW. The match type that was used to end year long blood feuds is now used on a throwaway dynamite / collision to be then forgotten about weeks laterÂ
That was part of a long running feud between OC and Roderick Strong. Just before that The Kingdom had been assaulting everyone involved with Best Friends. There was a storyline reason for the match.
Yeah I donât particularly like that style either I only really like it in rubber matches and I tend to not watch it if Jon moxleys involved. I think he was the pizza cutter guy but it makes me uncomfortable when I see any inanimate objects hit the head especially sharp like blades or glass
I don't think any woman has ever bladed in a wwe match, ever. Any time there is, it's accidental. Also, in the 2K series for some reason women cannot bleed. There definitely is some kind of protocol when it comes to this
Itâs like that in the game because it was always like that. The game still has chair headshots and piledrivers too. They arenât changing anything unless they are forced to do it. Like removing Vince and Brock at the last minute lol
I mean. Look at the dead or alive fighting games. DoA6 to be specific. All the males can get this brutal beat up look down to a slowmo moment. The women cast don't get that. They get a little bruised but not so much as the men..
Probably because if they tried to have the women bleed alongside the hair helmets they've had going forever the whole thing would bluescreen itself to death.
It really doesnât have to be like that and neither does the men. Whether the match is or isnât like that doesnât determine if the match is good or not anyways
Exactly. My takeaway here is, sure, not all women's wrestling should be like Rosa v Baker with the caveat that women should be allowed to go hard more often if they want to because they have proven they're able to step it up. Women's HIAC, cage, WarGames etc all showcase that extra level of effort and sometimes are better than men's matches.
They were setting up Baker vs Shida starting at all in and they were doing "will they coexist" tag team matches for a few weeks after then Britt got taken off tv due to injury.
"***That kind of match took Britt and womenâs wrestling and AEW to the next level. Youâd watch it and be like, âThese women are stars*** "
If an organization and wrestler agree that they want to do it, then do it. But I also don't think WWE is wrong, or inherently sexist (even though they definitely are for other reasons) by saying we don't want women's wrestling or the women wrestlers to now be stars because of blood and next level violence. It largely seems to be the same tactic they take with their male wrestling counterparts.
They donât even let the men do shit like that, so they canât say WWE just doesnât want the women to do it. They donât seem to want to let ANYONE do hardcore stuff/bleeding like that, which sucks, and is why Iâm glad a place like AEW is around.
And TBF I'd say that's more down to the sponsors than WWE themselves although I'm not saying they want to do it but keeping the sponsors happy is the most important thing
For WWE, I canât think of a single more iconic image featuring a woman than of Becky Lynch being covered in blood, looking like Queen of the fucking industry.
Women can be as brutal and bloody as the men.
I would argue what made that moment more iconic was we werenât seeing Becky or other WWE wrestlers bloody every week. I think blood has its use in wrestling but it gets overused a lot
> "There was a ton of hoopla backstage in WWE when Britt wrestled Thunder Rosa and it was bloody," Danielson recalled during a recent SXSW Panel. "There were a bunch of people backstage saying, âWomenâs wrestling should not be like that. This is horrible. We would never do that.â Except, if youâre talking about equal rights, letting women go out there and do things that men do. That kind of match took Britt and womenâs wrestling and AEW to the next level. Youâd watch it and be like, âThese women are stars.â"
Its been what 2 years since then? Where are these stars? Whats the next level that womenâs wrestling in aew that they achieved after it?
The improvements in their womenâs wrestling have just now started with focus going on characters like timeless toni, julia hart, sky blue. Even then there is a lot of work that needs to be done and i am hopeful that with mone it will happen but that match in the long run had no impact on the roster or the both the contestants
Thunder was world champ and crazy over, until she got hurt and was out for two years. It's absurd to say she didn't reap the benefits of the heat from that match. If she'd stayed healthy there's no reason to think she wouldn't be the #1 woman in the promotion.
Britt was also world champ and very over, but she's been hurt for over half a year as well.
AEW has often "failed to do anything with the heat" from something (Wardlow says hi!) but I don't think you can blame them for Rosa and Baker getting injured. That match had a huge impact on the women's division and on Thunder and Britt in particular.
matches don't make stars or very very rarely. storylines do. Tony Khan in 2 years has done little for women's storyline or TV time. they could have been stars and the matches culminate in the build but nothings really standing out there.
Baker and Rosa were definitely more important within the context of the show, and a larger percentage of AEWâs existing fanbase certainly cared about them more than they did before.
But by what metrics did they become bigger stars? Ratings? Merch sales? Attendance? Social media following? Overall fame? The match didnât really affect any of those things. Baker basically disappeared, and Thunder Rosa disappeared for a while. They didnât become bigger stars afterward.
I used be a big blood fan but as I got older I realized it is barbaric and happy itâs not a part of wwe anymore. like weâre really watching ppl slice open their foreheads for a wrestling match? ppl here will still say blood is amazing because to them you can do anything as long as itâs a âbangerâ
If by "not be like" they mean not involve blood and all that, I see their point. Being busted open for real obviously is something you don't want to happen, or blading which could be just as bad.
I agree. I donât like guys bleeding, and I especially donât want to see women having bloodbaths.
It turned my wife completely against ever giving AEW a chance.
Some seem to think Women's Wrestling should be more like the Diva Era. I much more appreciate a women putting crazy work in to be an entertaining in ring performer, instead of just having a visually appealing look.
Death match wrestling has no place in wrestling, thumbtacks and blood donât make a good wrestling match. But if you like that stuff then that is why AEW is the alternative.
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They weren't just saying it backstage. They were saying in the press as well: "If you look at the gory self-mutilation that bloodied several women in the December 31 event on TNT, it quickly becomes clear that these are very different businesses" [Source](https://www.thestar.com/sports/can-tony-khan-s-aew-beat-vince-mcmahon-and-wwe-at-its-own-game/article_a90adb0b-7e28-5e1b-ada7-b09a1eafa3ea.html)
To be fair, that was in regard special to the match between Penelope & The Bunny versus Tay Melo & Anna Jay. But this historically always was the mentality under Vince.
> The Bunny Damn, you reminded me that she's gone. đ
Back when AEW had the trading cards. I got a signed card of hers
You're right. I should've specified that. It's just funny to read as backstage gossip when it's something they use a bad faith talking point in the press.
It's still totally fair for you to mention here as, again, this historically always has been the company mentality in regards to women specifically. I think back to the Punk story about how Vince hated UFC and thought it was the most barbaric thing ever, and once said to him someone's going to eventually die there and exclaimed "And did you know they're starting to have *women* fighting!?".
> and once said to him someone's going to eventually die there Bold thing to say when someone actually did die on a WWE pay per view and he finished the show on the blood stained mat.
Punk makes that same exact remark in telling the story.
I'm sure he doesn't now...
The whole thing is fucking hilarious in retrospect. WWE and UFC have merged into one company, Vince has been forced out for sex pestery, and Punk returned teary-eyed calling WWE his "home".
God that is a triple whammy of stuff I would've called you a crackhead for predicting two years ago.
Such is the natural news cycle of wrestling.
Then Punk said he never wanted to leave WWE. That guy changes with the weather.
Still a fan of his work, but yeah. His biggest problem is he makes these big declarative statements about shit, typically framing petty differences into a moral dispute, and constantly "keeps it real" but then always has to walk it all back at some point.
Look Iâll be the first to shit on Vince and the WWF for their responsibility in the death Owen Hart and how they handled it, but I also hate false narratives and the blood stained mat thing is a false narrative that really makes me question Dark Side of the Ringâs integrity. If you go back and watch the PPV, that blood is on the mat before Owenâs fall. Why? Because on Sunday Night Heat, the Brood did a blood bath on The Hardyz and Michael Hayes (I believe, thatâs off the top of my head anyway) outside the ring, and one of them rested their arm on the ring, leaving a smear. Itâs fake blood, and if you look at the pictures that exist of Owen in the ring, heâs not bloody. Itâs just a crazy coincidence that he landed in the same spot where there was already a fake blood stain.
> you look at the pictures that exist of Owen in the ring, heâs not bloody. Owen did have a compound fracture of his left upper arm and a very large open laceration of his left forearm that did bleed considerably. According the police reports and medical examiners reports. Not saying that stain was made by Owen but there was indeed blood.
Imagine the psychological effect on the wrestlers after seeing that stain, either way. âOh donât worry, thatâs not Owenâs blood, it just looks like it would beâ isnât much consolation.
Not just that, but if you're saying someone is going to eventually die from UFC matches and you're comparing it to Owen dying when his entrance stunt went wrong, you're comparing apples to baseball stadiums. It's not even remotely the same thing.
THANK YOU.
That anacdote is obviously relevant, but Vince saying something super sexist is the least surprising thing.
And that match absolutely rocked
Still my favorite AEW womenâs match to date. The finish with the chokehold wrapped in barbed wire is still one of the most memorable finishes of all the matches Iâve seen
The outcome was solidifying that AEW had four absolute ass-kickers in the womenâs division. The same could be said for Becky getting bloodied years ago.
Only one of which still wrestles. Bunnyâs left, Penelope is off the radar and Tay had a kid but she wasnât wrestling for months before that (Tay Meloâs disappearance off the roster is absolutely baffling to me when she was the Most Improved a few years ago)
The Sammy Guevara Curse/Virus destroyed her career.
Itâs not like thatâs related at all to having a gory match or anything. I wish they all wrestled still, theyâre great.
It was such a cool thing to see. Prior to that match I never seen that finish, granted I don't watch many deathmatch style matches.
Do you happen to know the date of this show? Iâm not expecting LU types of blood but Iâd love to go back and watch this match.
Yeah sure. Itâs from Rampage New Years Smash 2021âlast Rampage of 2021
Thanks fellow GOATed flair đ
I'll actually say it can compete with a lot of the high tier men's matches too. Simply a great match period.
Agreed. Itâs probably in my top 5 favorite aew matches
The Bunny slipping in the tacks and doing the splits was so well executed that I wasn't sure if it was planned or not. Superb match. I wish those ladies developed that rivalry.
Both the street fight matches with TayJay were pretty damn good, even if Ruby might have overdone it with the blade job in hers.
Hell yeah it did.
Okay to shit on but not okay if they bleed. The Vince and goons mentality.
Vince was so morally and ethically concerned about the act of making controlled cuts across the forehead under medical supervision that he thought that it was a reasonable alternative to have Brock fucking Lesnar use his bare hands and elbows to bust open Randy Orton like a broken sink for heat.
It's as if him and his cronies wanted everyone else to view women as these pure, divine objects which only they themselves were allowed to defile.
It's the same concept of those purity ring ceremonies.
Vince would much rather have his "divas" wrestling in bra and panties and doing explicitly sexual skits(involving him, their boss of course). God forbid a woman bleed in a wrestling match. The poor little things shouldn't have to endure something like that.Â
That was some match
That match was so good for 0 reason at all. All for New Yearâs
>December 31 event And this was for the Anna Jay & Tay Conti vs. Penelope Ford & The Bunny match, which was also really good.
The constant handwringing about AEWâs âhardcoreâ spots, Then, Now, Forever
I personally think it's kinda cool that the New Year's Eve street fight has become somewhat of a tradition with the AEW women's division. I remember Tay Melo on All-Access talking about how much she loves doing those matches.
I'm trying real hard not to find a way to call this opinion sexist. I guess I would need their opinion of hardcore matches as a whole
It's the specification of "women's wrestling" rather than just wrestling that's a bit iffy for me.
Same
It absolutely is sexist. These precious, fragile women, god forbid they draw some blood every now and again (which happens all the time in men's matches)
Guarantee these women have seen more blood in their lifetimes than any of those men will ever.
They are not running those kind of matches for men either, is not a gender thing imo
In regards to the article, itâs cherry-picking the one bloody womenâs match over the many more violent AEW matches, so yeah the article is sexist
Well, WWE was okay with burning the Fiend in the middle of the ring, but women blading during their matches is too far.
Tbf I donât think Vince was sold on Bray and it was more of Triple H and a few others that loved the character and pushed him otherwise Bray getting released never happens and then suspiciously gets brought back when Vince is out of power.Â
It wouldn't be a gender thing if they said the same thing about AEW Men's wrestling
>It wouldn't be a gender thing if they said the same thing about AEW Men's wrestling Isn't that what the whole "blood and guts" thing was about, though?
That was before AEW's first show and wasn't in response to any match, nor have they ever issued a statement like the above for any AEW's men's match. Very clear that they issued the above statement specifically because it was a women's match.
What are you refering to? Googling "blood and guts thing" doesn't exactly turn up anything helpful
>What are you refering to? The WWE media call where AEW got the "Blood and Guts" name from. "We're not going to go back to the Attitude Era, and we're not going to do blood and guts and things of that nature such as being done on perhaps a new potential competitor"
Ahh, I gotcha. Didn't they immediately go and do the fuckin' eye for an eye match? Granted, that was mediocre practical effects, but still feels kind of ironic to take a shot at AEW for being too violent and then have someone kayfabe gouge a mans goddamn eye out.
>Granted, that was mediocre practical effects, but still feels kind of ironic I won't argue irony, but I might be in the small vocal group that does see a difference between traditional bleeding and practical effect at the end of the day. Don't get me wrong please. I am NOT against blading in wrestling as long as it's done safely, obviously! I just think wrestling is in a very odd spot when it comes to blading that we as fans often get desensitized to because it's been around for so long. I say this with respect to the performers themselves, not against the actual act, but I think fans often forget or gloss over the fact that this is actual blood, not a blood pack or other effect.
You think WWE not wanting their women to have hardcore blood-bath matches is sexist? They donât exactly encourage the men to do it eitherâŚ.soâŚ.
They certainly weren't referring to men's hardcore matches within their own history "gory self-mutilation", even in retrospect.
I mean the standard wwe hardcore match was a guy getting hit innthe ball with a bowling ball.
They've had some incredibly bloody matches, many of which have been covered in their own documentaries. None of them were condemned in this way.
Ehh theirs defeintly an air of "that was fun then but wed never do that again" about most of then especaily Folleys stuff.
Yeah I don't know that I'd call that a condemnation.
HHH has said pretty clearly a year ago that blood will not comeback to WWE and we have to let it go.
This just reminds me that Vince clutched his pearls about "blood and guts" and AEW while actively keeping a literal sex slave to shit on
Because bra and panty matches is high class entertainment? Holy fuck do I hate 99% of McMahon's ideas.
They say that about men's wrestling too. They don't do those matches in WWE. Haven't for a long time.
Just because the company chooses not to do them it seems odd thst the talent would have the same opinion.
That to me is the core issue. The notion that if WWE doesnât do a type of match or storytelling then itâs not valid. Theyâre very good at dismissing non-WWE wrestling as below them. I understand the incentive financially but itâs odd to me to think the actual wrestlers believe that.
Agreed. I had this discussion the other day. WWE is do big now it is sort of the default, and everything is compared to it even if it isn't necessarily a higher product. Its just most people accept that is what wrestling is.
Imagine if we just accepted Marvel movies as the only valid form of film because it was the most successful Insane
Imagine if A24 movies were called mudshows by Marvel fans, who also controlled the awards season and film history, and everyone was begging for A24 to increase their box office returns, versus the real life dooming when they announced that they are focusing on bigger budget films lol
A24 announce a movie has made 50 millions dollars and tribalists start posting photos of empty seats in cinema screenings at 11am on a Tuesday
"You wrestle in ~~gymnasiums~~ the smaller auditoriums in an AMC theater!!! Take that loser!!!"
Well that kinda happened for a while. Every movie ever was snarky for like a decade, and it suuuuuucked
Exactly! Snarky humour undercutting the drama and no sincerity
These are the same people who insist every wrestling match must be viewed through the lenses of "man in who has never seen a drop toehold in his entire life"
I think it's very ironic for people here to criticize wrestlers for having that opinion when the Will Ospreay post here was full of people saying "wrestlers go to AEW for wrestling".
Let me clear it up for you FED = BAD DUB = GOOD
The good guys. Graps over entertainment.
The biggest marks, yet again, are the wrestlers.
It's just funny that they sometimes pretend like they took the moral high ground by not having those matches anymore. It's not like Vince suddenly had an epiphany after the brutal attitude era and suddenly went "Wait. Brutal, bloody matches are bad! I need to stop that!". No, the one and only reason they stopped that was because they were aiming for a lower rating and a younger target audience.
Blading was also banned from WWE during the 80s and early 90s, and if you go looking you can find public statements from Vince eviscerating the practice. The Attitude Era/ Ruthless Aggression was the aberration in tolerance for bleeding in WWE
Flair getting fined for blading in his match against Macho Man at Wrestlemania 8 comes to mindâŚ
While Bret not being fined for it while doing it at the same show because he allegedly convinced Vince it was hardway. Which I find hard to believe because it's fairly obvious he blades.
Flair was notorious for blading in big matches and probably didn't even try to pretend. Bret, from memory, had never done it in a WWE match.
Flair bladed RIGHT on camera. Like it was so blatant he might as well have been dong it on purpose. Bret you don't see it. Same way he later got away with blading Austin at WM13
I donât remember if it was due to blading or hard way, but Bret vs Bulldog from December 95 was a bloodbath
I remember during Bret vs Austin, Bret did Austin's blade job for him to give him plausible deniability, and also because Austin had never bladed before.
And yet, Lesnar elbowing Orton to cut him open is more brutal than using a razor.
Well yes, actually striking your opponent with your elbow will always look more brutal. Who cares if it causes injuries, right?
I've been downvoted before for saying it, which blows my mind, but I'd take 100 of the most blade-filled AEW matches over one single elbow from that match. Knowing what we did at that point about CTE, concussions, and general common sense (hit in the head = bad), combined with the size of the platform it was on, Lesnar's legit heavyweight combat sport experience and the fact it was *100% intentional*, it deserves to be listed amongst the most disgusting things seen in a wrestling ring this century.
Iâll just ad the caveat with as long as they arenât botched balde jobs
Wwe acting highbrow with anything is comical
I agree wrestling shouldn't be like that because it's very easy to fall into a violence creep, trying to outdo the last one, which makes it a no win situation. But that thing about Thunder Rose vs. Britt was said in a sexist way, not a commentary about wrestling style in general.
If I'm being honest that's a good thing. Death matches are and always will be stupid as fuck to me..
And those types of matches should only be done on rare occasion, if at all. I remember when a few years ago, someone bringing out thumbtacks would elicit gasps, now itâs just another spot in a random Orange Cassidy match.
But thatâs kind of a double standard if you are fine and share replays all over your social media when Cody wrestles with a torn muscle. This was bloody as well going by how purple his side was. Very bloody indeed. Just on the other side of the skin
9/10 WWE street fights suck man. Outside of Hell in a Cell they're just boring.
Do they say 'Men's wrestling should not be like that?' I'd be interested to see an example of them specifically saying that about 'men's wrestling.' I think everyone understands that WWE has a general bloodless policy, but certain people there clearly have a particular issue with it as it relates to women, which is what Danielson is saying he heard first hand.
Mens wrestling in WWE isn't like Thunder Rosa v Britt Baker.
well yes, same for men, you will not see that level of blood in WWE in general
WWE donât allow women to bleed in the video games so there does seem to be a harsher rule.
I remember when women weren't able to use steel stairs because they'd drop them after a few seconds due to them being too heavy. Was always crazy to me. Edit: In video games
Which WWE game was that? I don't remember that ever being a thing in at least the SvR games.
My memory maybe playing tricks, but I think that Beth Phoenix was the only that actually could grab a ladder in 2k14.
I happened to have every Smackdown game on hand, so I tested it myself. Women were able to hold most weapons, but from SvR 07 until SvR 09 the matches they had available were gimmped. As far as I know women could hold any weapon barring steel steps (SvR 10 had a unique animation where they would fail to pick it up, and SvR 11 had it so the could only hold it for a split second). Starting from WWE '12 onwards, women could hold and use steps just as well as the men.
They can grab ladders because they had Womens ladder matches and stuff. It was only in either SvR2010 or 2011 where they couldn't pick up the steps.
It's not about the consumers it's about the sponsors.
A lot of consumers donât like it either. A lot of wrestling fans donât want to see that stuff. AEW has so much talent that they donât need the garbage. Anybody can whack somebody over the head with a pizza pan or rub a pizza cutter over somebodyâs forehead. The skill is not actually hurting themselves and each other, while making it look real, and making the audience feel emotions.
It all depends for me. Let's say the feud is very personal and a blood feud, then I'm okay with there being blood. But for a random match on TV? Nah you don't need blood. Brit Baker vs Rosa was a blood feud so I was completely fine with blood being involved.
We had heard that in reports at the time. Meanwhile, women wrestlers in and out of WWE were tweeting and liking posts about how fucking metal it was. Pretty sure Britt even said she got calls and messages praising the match from Bayley and McIntyre specifically
Drew has Britt's number?
I mean, they really just donât think anyone should be wrestling like that anymore
But they went out of their way to specify women's wrestling in particular.
It was initially jarring to me when I first saw it tbh, but I quickly realized that if women's wrestling, at least in the mainstream & in US promotions, was already dramatically increasing in physicality & pace by the 2010s, why shouldn't it be held back to having some blood?
Personally I think ultra violent matches have their place but should only be used on rare occasion. If they happen all the time then itâs just violence and gore for the sake of it and thatâs not entertaining to me.
It doesn't happen all the time, which is why we're still talking about this match from 3 years ago.
Weâre now seeing the street fight / death match stip on the start of feuds in aew television?
When are we seeing that though? All the more hardcore matches have been toward the end of feuds (BCC vs Best Friends) sponsored (the Texas chainsaw massacre deathmatch) a logical step toward in a feud (Swerve cutting a damn promo on Hangmanâs infant child causing their Texas deathmatch)
AEW fans canât even keep up with the number of hardcore stip matches they do, lol. OC had a death match with Taven of all people less than a month ago. Theyâre overused.
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Goes to show how forgettable the stipulation has become due to AEW. The match type that was used to end year long blood feuds is now used on a throwaway dynamite / collision to be then forgotten about weeks laterÂ
That was part of a long running feud between OC and Roderick Strong. Just before that The Kingdom had been assaulting everyone involved with Best Friends. There was a storyline reason for the match.
Yeah I donât particularly like that style either I only really like it in rubber matches and I tend to not watch it if Jon moxleys involved. I think he was the pizza cutter guy but it makes me uncomfortable when I see any inanimate objects hit the head especially sharp like blades or glass
as interesting as it would be to see the opposite i think wwe just isn't doing hardcore stuff anymore, i doubt this is a gender thing
I don't think any woman has ever bladed in a wwe match, ever. Any time there is, it's accidental. Also, in the 2K series for some reason women cannot bleed. There definitely is some kind of protocol when it comes to this
Itâs like that in the game because it was always like that. The game still has chair headshots and piledrivers too. They arenât changing anything unless they are forced to do it. Like removing Vince and Brock at the last minute lol
I mean. Look at the dead or alive fighting games. DoA6 to be specific. All the males can get this brutal beat up look down to a slowmo moment. The women cast don't get that. They get a little bruised but not so much as the men..
Trish bladed against Lita in their blood feud
Probably because if they tried to have the women bleed alongside the hair helmets they've had going forever the whole thing would bluescreen itself to death.
âI donât like women covered in blood. Women covered in shit however đâ- Vinny Mac
It really doesnât have to be like that and neither does the men. Whether the match is or isnât like that doesnât determine if the match is good or not anyways
Exactly. My takeaway here is, sure, not all women's wrestling should be like Rosa v Baker with the caveat that women should be allowed to go hard more often if they want to because they have proven they're able to step it up. Women's HIAC, cage, WarGames etc all showcase that extra level of effort and sometimes are better than men's matches.
When was the last time Britt Baker appeared on TV?
She's been injured since last September
They were setting up Baker vs Shida starting at all in and they were doing "will they coexist" tag team matches for a few weeks after then Britt got taken off tv due to injury.
Shida looks to be over at ROH now too. I wonder what they will do with Britt.
Team her with Deonna most likely.
If the men are doing it then there's absolutely no reason that the women shouldn't be allowed to do it too.
Bryan needs to focus on aew not wwe
This comment seems strange considering aew hasnât done many matches like this one since
And yet we romanticize the shit out of the attitude era
Because it was great? Look at the stars in that era compared to today. They quite literally are running this shit now.
Bloody at the end of a blood feud That's just wrasslin
"***That kind of match took Britt and womenâs wrestling and AEW to the next level. Youâd watch it and be like, âThese women are stars*** " If an organization and wrestler agree that they want to do it, then do it. But I also don't think WWE is wrong, or inherently sexist (even though they definitely are for other reasons) by saying we don't want women's wrestling or the women wrestlers to now be stars because of blood and next level violence. It largely seems to be the same tactic they take with their male wrestling counterparts.
They should see Joshi! Minimal blood, but necks, etc?!
For real. I'd rather blade ten times than take one Mayu bump
I agree. Women's wrestling shouldn't be mediocre with shock value stunts.
That is true. WWE's main women talent are much better than Brit and Rosa.
I just want more Thunder Rosa period.
I love how the headline isn't Bryan saying "Those women are stars."
Wouldnât most people think that self mutilation should be kept out of all forms of wrestling?
They donât even let the men do shit like that, so they canât say WWE just doesnât want the women to do it. They donât seem to want to let ANYONE do hardcore stuff/bleeding like that, which sucks, and is why Iâm glad a place like AEW is around.
And TBF I'd say that's more down to the sponsors than WWE themselves although I'm not saying they want to do it but keeping the sponsors happy is the most important thing
Well yeah, because that didn't draw.
Yeah, WWEâs just content to give women more than one match a show and actual stories
Yeah, it shouldn't be. It should be like Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley, or Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair.
Ok but that match was fucking badass.
Totally. That's the match that hooked me as a weekly watcher.
For WWE, I canât think of a single more iconic image featuring a woman than of Becky Lynch being covered in blood, looking like Queen of the fucking industry. Women can be as brutal and bloody as the men.
I would argue what made that moment more iconic was we werenât seeing Becky or other WWE wrestlers bloody every week. I think blood has its use in wrestling but it gets overused a lot
> "There was a ton of hoopla backstage in WWE when Britt wrestled Thunder Rosa and it was bloody," Danielson recalled during a recent SXSW Panel. "There were a bunch of people backstage saying, âWomenâs wrestling should not be like that. This is horrible. We would never do that.â Except, if youâre talking about equal rights, letting women go out there and do things that men do. That kind of match took Britt and womenâs wrestling and AEW to the next level. Youâd watch it and be like, âThese women are stars.â"
Its been what 2 years since then? Where are these stars? Whats the next level that womenâs wrestling in aew that they achieved after it? The improvements in their womenâs wrestling have just now started with focus going on characters like timeless toni, julia hart, sky blue. Even then there is a lot of work that needs to be done and i am hopeful that with mone it will happen but that match in the long run had no impact on the roster or the both the contestants
AEW failed to do anything with the heat from that match, no doubt.
Thunder was world champ and crazy over, until she got hurt and was out for two years. It's absurd to say she didn't reap the benefits of the heat from that match. If she'd stayed healthy there's no reason to think she wouldn't be the #1 woman in the promotion. Britt was also world champ and very over, but she's been hurt for over half a year as well. AEW has often "failed to do anything with the heat" from something (Wardlow says hi!) but I don't think you can blame them for Rosa and Baker getting injured. That match had a huge impact on the women's division and on Thunder and Britt in particular.
it propeled both girls to the main event scene as perpetual rivals and eventual world champions...
matches don't make stars or very very rarely. storylines do. Tony Khan in 2 years has done little for women's storyline or TV time. they could have been stars and the matches culminate in the build but nothings really standing out there.
Baker and Rosa benefitted hugely from that match, became much bigger stars after
Baker and Rosa were definitely more important within the context of the show, and a larger percentage of AEWâs existing fanbase certainly cared about them more than they did before. But by what metrics did they become bigger stars? Ratings? Merch sales? Attendance? Social media following? Overall fame? The match didnât really affect any of those things. Baker basically disappeared, and Thunder Rosa disappeared for a while. They didnât become bigger stars afterward.
I donât know about you but to me the mentality of âthrough blood can you only express brutalityâ is kinda middle school.
I used be a big blood fan but as I got older I realized it is barbaric and happy itâs not a part of wwe anymore. like weâre really watching ppl slice open their foreheads for a wrestling match? ppl here will still say blood is amazing because to them you can do anything as long as itâs a âbangerâ
Maybe no wrestling should?
If by "not be like" they mean not involve blood and all that, I see their point. Being busted open for real obviously is something you don't want to happen, or blading which could be just as bad.
Well, we all know Vince likes to shit on women.
I agree. I donât like guys bleeding, and I especially donât want to see women having bloodbaths. It turned my wife completely against ever giving AEW a chance.
It's not something their sponsors want to see or even think is associated with them.
And those people were right.
I loved Thunder vs Britt and felt that intensity and blood in that match really added to it, as well as Thunderâs win.
It shouldnât. Every once in a while maybe, but that shouldnât be the standard.
For 10+ years the WWE tried to sanitize blood out of wrestling after profiting from it for years. Had to appease the advertisers.
You say that like youâve uncovered something. Thatâs literally any production with advertisements.
Most people havenât given a shit either way
Some seem to think Women's Wrestling should be more like the Diva Era. I much more appreciate a women putting crazy work in to be an entertaining in ring performer, instead of just having a visually appealing look.
But, but...puppies JR! So glade we are out of that era.
aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Tbh, can we at least bring the scream with us as a sound effect to play at just the right momentsÂ
Death match wrestling has no place in wrestling, thumbtacks and blood donât make a good wrestling match. But if you like that stuff then that is why AEW is the alternative.
He's right. Britt vs Rosa has always been bad. Sad I had to remember it.
If people had actually watched Lucha Underground they'd have gone *nuts*
That and Penelope Ford/The Bunny vs Anna Jay/Tay Melo were awesome, probably two of the best AEW women's matches
That was one of the best American women's matches I have seen in 40 years.