Blading Without The Wheels: The History of Blood In Wrestling
(I originally planned to do this for Fighting Spirit magazine but got blanked, so I transitioned it in to my latest column. It features original quotes from Sheldon Goldberg and Damien Demento)…
For those ignorant to the sport of professional wrestling, the bleeding on a wrestler’s forehead is simply tomato sauce, makeup or a strategically placed capsule full of Halloween blood - but the proverbial “crimson mask” as WWE Hall of Famers Gordon Solie and Jim Ross like to describe it, is more real than perhaps anything else that goes on in the squared circle. To put it bluntly, wrestlers bleed, real blood. But in a family friendly sport, now dubbed entertainment, of which the leading promotion WWE has recently been listed as a parental guidance (PG) rated program in the US, does blood - REAL blood still have its place?
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Taipei Death match.
Before the likes of the original ECW were over supplementing their superb work rate with Taipei Death matches (a match where each wrestler dips their taped fists in glue and glass before letting them unload) the likes of Sabu’s uncle, the original Sheik and later Abdullah the Butcher made their careers on legitimately busting open their opponents, or more often than not bleeding profusely themselves.
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The Sheik biting his opponent.
Hated by the fans the Sheik would conceal bits of wood, pencils or other sharp objects in his attire to stab his good guy opponents with and due to his 100% Kayfabe policy, anyone who dared to question his legitimacy would be greeted with a fireball to the face. He stayed in character his whole life and wasn’t even Edward Farhat to his family. He was globally considered a scary man and long before the likes of the internet exposed everything about everyone and wrestlers happily chat out of character on Myspace, word would spread from town to town that “the Sheik is coming,” which meant blood, guts and great ticket sales. Despite wrestling being far less exposed in the 50s 60s and 70s the use of blood, coming from a blatant fork jab to the head put any nay sayers in their place. Who would argue with a crazy Arab that didn’t speak English, waving a pencil soaked in blood around like a madman? That was real.
Although the Sheik is probably more known for his fireballs, a mystery you’ll have to solve for yourselves, it was Abdullah The Butcher that took the bloody fork to new heights. Jabbing his opponents, the referees, himself and probably a couple of fans along the way the Butcher himself was a king of Kayfabe. For the record he’s actually from Canada and owns a scrumptious house of ribs but for many years before it was pointless to keep quiet, he didn’t utter a word and as far as anybody else was concerned, Abdullah was a madman from the Sudan, who needed legends such as Gary Hart, Paul Jones, the Grand Wizard or JJ Dillon to do his speaking and translating for him.
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Abdullah the Butcher.
Flitting from territory to territory so as not to become over familiar, keeping his blood soaked aura fresh, Abdullah the Butcher would carve up the local babyface like a joint of beef before going on to the next town to reek havoc and strike fear in to the hearts of his new gore hungry fans, or enemies who couldn’t stomach their white trunked good guy getting a pasting.
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A classic blood cover.
Along his journey came bloodstained posters and magazine photos, which wrestling mad teenagers would save their pocket money for. They didn’t care about the short and often generic paragraphs on each page (a lot of the time the stories were completely made up to supplement the photos, bar Apter’s “what’s happening” column), only wanting to see the gory pictures to add to their collection in hope that he’d visit their town and jab a fork in their babyface steak.
Throughout history blood and wrestling magazine covers have gone together like bread and butter. This isn’t to say wrestlers needed to blade to keep the sales of magazines turning a profit, but ask anyone who was around in the 70s and 80s and they’ll probably mention a blood splattered picture or two from their collection. Whether it be the original Sheik, Bobby Heenan before he became a weasel, Ric Flair or Shawn Michaels, almost every major star has been bloodied on the cover or featured in one magazine or another. WWE’s official magazines have had their own fair share of juice over the years as well.
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The Naitch!
It can’t really be defined, but seeing light blond hair such as Ric Flair or Jeff Jarrett’s turn red is like viewing a Picasso. Slightly gruesome and painful looking, but intriguing and part of the story, in the ring and in the painting respectively. There’s just something shocking about seeing blood that takes a match to the next level. New England Championship Wrestling promoter Sheldon Goldberg thinks it helps in certain situations. “It’s hard to explain the value and validity of blading in pro wrestling to anyone who isn’t actually in the business. It still has its place when the situation is right. For example, there are times when blood is the only way to drive home the importance of an angle or a feud. We only allow blading when the circumstances specifically call for it. We don’t over use it and it is not done if the workers are uncomfortable with it. For these reasons, it is effective for us when it is done.”
The modern form of blading requires a small razor type blade to be gently cut along the forehead, usually in naturally occurring wrinkles to prevent disfigurement, although the leathered and dented scar tissue skin on the top of Abdullah the Butcher’s head (which he can famously hold coins in) and to a lesser extent Dusty Rhodes proves that some wrestlers reach the point of self mutilation.
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Ultra Violent.
The rise of modern Ultra Violent wrestling from the likes of CZW and IWA:MS, inspired by Japanese death matches, arguably take blading one step too far. Instead of picking and choosing to bleed in order to further an emotional angle, fans become desensitized as shows contain blood from start to finish, often drowning out good technical wrestling when there is some. And because the shows remain violent throughout it’s hard for authorities to distinguish what is meant to happen and what isn’t - such as the Mike Levy situation from IWA:MS a few months back when said wrestler was beaten to a pulp by numerous wrestlers on the roster, but nobody knew if he was getting humbled or if it was supposed to happen.
In promotions like WWE and TNA (where they don’t blatantly stab each other with knives) the small blade is often concealed in tights, knee pads, taped wrists or just held, and it wouldn’t be wrong to think the ref sometimes passes it along during a bout. Once the wrestler gets knocked down they’ll cover their face in pain, make the cut and “get colored.”
It’s not always been as “clear cut” (excuse the pun) as this and back in the day if there were no blades or weapons, skilled wrestlers like Terry Funk were able to simply make a well placed jab just above the eye and the blood would start flowing.
It is often the case that one performer may entrust another to help blade or bust them open, however there’s been more than one occasion when that trust has been broken and the blading has gone terribly wrong.
Now somewhat of a cult event the 1996 “Mass Transit” incident in ECW was one of those out of control moments. Paul Heyman who had began using local talent when ECW began to travel, allowed a self taught teenager to fill in for Axl Rotten in a tag team match with Dvon Dudley against the Gangstas New Jack and Mustafa. Mass Transit (real name Eric Kulas), with the full support of his father (who was in attendance) explained to Paul that he was a wrestler and could do the job. It is believed that Heyman didn’t know the kid was really 17, nor that he’d only ever wrestled once at a carny show splashing midgets - maybe he didn’t ask, but either way he penciled the portly child in to the card and the match was set.
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Mass Transit Incident
During the bout, whether through pre-meditation (you never know with New Jack) or by accident, the gangsta used what was described by him later as a “surgical scalpel” to cut Kulas so deep that the blood began pissing from his head in a very alarming and Kill Bill like manner. Some thought this was to teach the kid a lesson for being so arrogant backstage, others think it was just New Jack being New Jack. Either way it was a disturbing site to see the kid blatantly out of his depth, with his father screaming “he’s only 17″ from behind the rail.
Although in the end nobody went down, there were numerous implications, including lawsuits and the forced dragging out of PPV distribution negotiations as Heyman tried to explain that he wasn’t allowing assault with a deadly weapon on his product.
A few years earlier in what has become another cult event, was a match in 1992 between The Great Muta and Hiroshi Hase for New Japan Pro Wrestling. The amount of blood lost by Muta during this match from a bad blade job sparked a measuring stick for blood loss in wrestling called the “Muta Scale.” Now it’s not uncommon for fans to rank the blood loss of a wrestler on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 in relation to the river of red that flowed during that bout.
A more recent occurrence where there was “bad blood” happened at the 2005 WWE Armageddon PPV when the Undertaker took on Randy Orton in a Hell in a Cell match. It was Orton’s father “Cowboy” Bob that caused the controversy when he bladed and bled over the Undertaker. It all erupted backstage when Undertaker discovered Orton had hepatitus as a child, which is a highly contagious blood disease that can remain contagious for life. Thankfully Undertaker didn’t contract anything, but Cowboy Bob didn’t stick around much longer.
Countless times blood, often over the top blood has been used in matches, that although may have helped put over the feud, at times have seemed to go a little too far and become dangerous. Steve Austin dying the mat red whilst in the Sharpshooter at Wrestlemania 13, Eddie Guerrero slipping on his own blood at Judgment Day 2004 and even HBK’s recent blood loss in his excellent feud with Chris Jericho. All of them did its desired job, but at what cost?
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Steve Austin in the Sharpshooter.
It’s easy to see why the use of real blood was needed during the golden era, territory days of pro wrestling and even on the independent level where live audiences are more important. It keeps fans believing, it drives ticket sales (in TNA’s case DVD sales with Best of the Bloodiest Brawls) and it takes feuds to the next level, but in the increasingly corporate environment that wrestling has reached, is REAL blood appropriate? Why not succumb to the ignoramuses and use phony blood capsules? Its more hygienic, obviously doesn’t hurt and allows even the most timid wrestlers the chance to bleed without getting looked down on by the veterans because they weren’t prepared to give it all in the ring, as was recently rumored when the Motor City Machine Guns refused to blade with Team 3D.
One person who thinks blading is still stuck in wrestling’s carny roots and wants to take action, is former (albeit brief) pro wrestler Phil Theis, better known as Damien Demento, who recently hit internet headlines with his deranged WWE ranting promos on Youtube.
“What if I told you that there has been a longtime practice of employers asking employees to deliberately cut themselves? Worse still, they are asked to do this in front of children. It gets worse. Most know this sick practice is being done. Where does this take place? Would you believe College and High School auditoriums, County, and State Fairs [Indy shows], Sporting Arenas, and on Television? Not just in this State, but around the Country,” stated Thies in a letter to his New York State Senator.
“Sadly, many wrestlers feel this practice is a tradition, and feel a kinship to the business if they perform this. Simultaneously, today, we have teens, for a variety of emotional reasons, who cut themselves. I can only see a kind of glorification and acceptance of this practice if children and teens see this performed by wrestlers who are now major TV and film celebrities,” he concluded.
Blading hasn’t always been seen as an acceptable thing to do in mainstream wrestling. With the rise of aids, national exposure and more and more children watching, Vince McMahon virtually outlawed the act of blading in the 1980’s apart from on the odd occasion when the wrestler was probably punished or if it was put down to being really busted open “hardway.”
In the early 1990’s with growing TV audiences WCW also banned blading in fear of a media backlash or problems with “standards and practices”. When Steve “William” Regal was busted open on Nitro one night, the camera panned to the audience until the match was over and that wasn’t a blade, but the stiff shots of Chris Benoit.
Although no hard evidence exists, it was rumored that WCW took such an anti-blading stance at one point that Dustin Rhodes, Barry Darsow and Mike Graham were all fired after they staged a blade job at Uncensored 1995 in the infamous “Road Wild” match where Dustin and Darsow battled it out on a moving 18 wheeled truck. The footage itself had to be heavily edited.
So with the risk of blading (deliberately or accidentally) getting out of hand, the potential of contracting dangerous diseases like aids or hepatitis, the fear of what happens if one refuses to blade and problems with censorship - why on earth don’t they just outlaw it altogether?
Could it be because it’s wrestling’s last piece of evidence that makes what goes on in the ring real? Or perhaps because if saved for special occasions it really does make the match standout?
Wrestling has always crossed the line and pushed the boundaries of entertainment and there will never be clear cut answers to everything that goes on in the squared circle. It’s often the mystery behind the sport and the willingness of its athletes that creates fans and keeps them there. Blading is a part of that and will never go away completely. As they say, it’s not ballet - a little blood loss here and there is expected and only adds to the suspension of disbelief.
WWE are generally very good at picking and choosing when blading is appropriate and blood on TV is quite rare. The Indy scene is obviously less regulated and some genres of wrestling call for constant blood loss, but nobody has ever died as a result of blading.
At the end of the day parents should have control over what their children watch and whether you love blood in wrestling are indifferent or want to use it for your own political reasons like Mr Demento, it’s happened, happens and will continue to happen. The day people stop bleeding after being hit in real fights is the day wrestlers stop bleeding in worked fights.
By Keelan Balderson on September 25th, 2008
wrestlingtruth.com
