10 OTHER Gimmick Matches WWE Needs To Revisit
3. First Blood
As of April 30, 2017, petitioning for the return of the First Blood match would have been as pointless as cheering on Sami Zayn - up until then, WWE provided no reason whatsoever to justify it.
That changed at Payback, when WWE conspicuously trained their cameras on Roman Reigns' bleeding mouth. Claret, for the first non-"accidental" occasion in an age, had been spilled to enhance the drama of a match. It's something WWE should do more often because it is, ironically, far more safe than the high-impact, athletic style which has slowly come to define WWE in the post-NXT era.
The First Blood match is often better on paper than in execution - it's difficult to name a classic from the top of one's head - but they never worked that well in the pre-PG era because so many top-level bouts used blood as a shortcut to dramatic tension. In many respects, the PG era is actually the best time in which to pull it off. The lack of colour seen elsewhere would generate a sort of ghoulish suspense lacking when the red stuff was ubiquitous.
Of course, the slowly-shifting WWE style endangers the very idea of a First Blood match because so many performers bleed accidentally as a result of it.