AEW & The Blood Effect

 Watching the Jon Moxley vs. Chris Jericho match on Dynamite the other night, I realized something that I did not pay much attention to before. AEW love's blood in a match, in fact they love it so much it's gotten the point of being overused and diluting the story of a match.

So hear me out. Pro wrestling at it's core is atheletic storytelling. The job of pro wrestlers are to put on good matches and have the audience invested and engaged in the action in the ring, and the characters themselves. 

The most often used angles in wrestling are about ego, championships, Good vs. Evil, friends turned enemies, and David vs Golaith among many. Blood used in matches means the feud is at the point they just want to rip each other's head's off.

The frequent use of blood in AEW matches are bringing down the part blood can play in advancing a feud or capping it off. Earlier in the night Brody King bleed like hell in his match against Darby Allin. It was a good match but two blood heavy matches and one certainly wasn't needed.  

Just think about it's now annual Blood & Guts match. Which while entertaining are usually spot fests with lots of blood rolling down the face of the wrestlers. Now that I think about if it's not every episode it maybe every other episode there's a crimson mask or two appearing on Dynamite. It definitely has become a trope during their pay-per-views. 

And all of their major players have bled at some point and it's been more than one occassion. Cody (who was the king of bleeding during his time there), MJF, CM Punk, Jericho, Moxley, Bryan Danielson, Britt Baker. Even supporting stars like The Bunny, Wheeler Yuta, and Dustin Rhodes have bled during their matches.

                                             

Even if my memory is misguiding me right now, the point is AEW is relying way too much on blood in matches. I wonder if internally it's become some sort of locker room rite of passage.

I'm not against blood in matches, I'm just saying it's not always needed, it has a purpose when it's done to enhance the story. Other than situations where bleeding naturally occurs over the course of a botched move or landing on some props or something wrong. AEW should really pull back and reserve the use of blood in matches, when they really want to drive home the stakes of a match or feud and not just doing it for shock value.