Right out of the gate, lets be clear: In no way is this a condemnation of WWE for allowing bleeding during the Hell in a Cell match between Undertaker and Brock Lesnar. In fact, the blood added to the match nicely and worked well given how hard the two were hitting each other at that point. But its extremely hypocritical of WWE to ban blading during matches, fining those who violate the seven-year-old rule, only to then play up those times that major stars have bled either hardway or through a bladejob. Sunday, both Lesnar and Taker bled during their cell match, with the Deadman pretty clearly blading on camera. You could see him outside the ring crawling around and putting his hand up to his forehead numerous times. When he stood up moments later, he had blood trickling down his face. (While thats not a silver bullet, it looked about as obvious as possible.) Blood can add something to a match, especially when its supposed to be a deeply personal feud and/or when weapons get involved. WWEs no-blood policy has its place, but there certainly are times that feuds and matches would clearly benefit from some color. Whats really hypocritical is that this only seems to happen when tippy-top guys tangle. Imagine if a blood feud between Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins involved a little actual blood. Wouldnt that add something to the bout? Sadly, it seems to be reserved only for a select few.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
