10 Wrestlers Who Broke The Muta Scale

When used with a degree of safety and considerable artistry, blood in wrestling acts as a symbol for violence as opposed to genuine violence. In short, it's a work; the shallow cut is opened over the forehead, to ensure a photogenic and not inconsiderable pour - and to minimise the risk of bleeding out. To sustain the drama, an opponent can re-open the wound, designed to seal quickly, with a worked punch.

Yes, this is entertainment - but as the Great Muta discovered in legendary fashion, the hazards are real. In a notorious 1992 match opposite Hiroshi Hase, Muta entered with crimson face paint and, after a blade job masquerading as a crowbar spot went awry, left with a particularly gruesome crimson mask. As the camera first captured the visual, Muta slumped to his knees - at which point the red stuff poured all over the canvas to form a pool. Blood coated his entire body, and that of his opponent. It was the wrestling tape trader's Faces of Death.

And thus the Muta Scale - the barometer against which all future blade jobs were judged - was born. Even through the grainy VHS transfer, the gore is revolting - though not entirely as definitive as the official title suggests.

Many bemoan the lack of blood in modern wrestling, which is somewhat understandable, much as a certain drama is missing.

But the scope for life-threatening injury is frighteningly high...

What's ironic about the first-ever Hell In A Cell match, between The Undertaker and Shawn Michaels at in Your House: Badd Blood, is that it promised the evolution of the steel cage contest - and yet it was the last genuine match of its type in how it was performed. Michaels sold as if suffocated by the mesh, frantically and desperately attempting to escape it and the unstoppable monster within. Nowadays, it exists as something for the performers to just bounce around and off, with the spectacle supplanting any sort of storyline logic.

The blood, as it so often did, helped; the mere sight of Michaels donning the crimson mask - more a cloak, really, given the grisly extent of the gigging - put the stipulation over as this utterly brutal battleground. Referee Earl Hebner failed to obstruct the blade job itself, which is a shame in and of itself and because Michaels must have really hurt himself to set it up. He flung himself back-first on the concrete to dropkick 'Taker against the cell wall. His second attempt was unsuccessful; 'Taker caught and catapulted him, while Hebner failed to mask the angle.

Michaels visibly sliced his own forehead, but it hardly mattered; every other second of this war was a masterpiece, in which blood elevated it to a work of art, not a cheap flea market exercise in carny-ism.