Kevin Sullivan Opens Up About Blood & Blading In Modern Wrestling, AEW's Jon Moxley
Although blood is rarely seen on WWE programming these days, many organizations outside of the Stamford-based promotion still allow wrestlers to be busted open on their shows. Multi-time tag team champion Kevin Sullivan spoke about the use of blood and blading in today's world of professional wrestling on his "Tuesday with The Taskmaster" podcast.
"I have two things [to say] about it," Sullivan said. "One is, I think if we use it — because we understand now that we're seeing entertainment that's really sports entertainment, but the gimmick is out, everybody knows it, everybody's using a razor blade. Some of them show guys on TV now actually blading, which I can't understand how they let a cameraman shoot that. I'm thinking that if it's done very rare, yeah. But, I mean, it has to be rare, it has to be the right situation.
"And the other thing is, back in the day when you asked a guy to do it. If he didn't want to do it, they had a way of letting you know because they say, 'Oh, no problem, no problem.' But when they did it, it was a pap smear, a little trickle. So then you knew whether or not to ask them to do it again. But, again, and with today's day and age, I think it may — if you run rampant with it, I think it belittles your own program that you can't think about anything better than that."
'You don't want to take away from him'
Sullivan also discussed former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, who regularly bleeds in the ring and was recently seen with skewers planted in his skull while performing at New Japan Pro-Wrestling's Independence Day shows. Many feel that Moxley "bleeds too often" in his matches.
"If Jon thinks that that is a part of his act, go ahead and do it," Sullivan said. "But, they gotta be careful that he's given the — back in the day when finishes were protected, that's his gimmick, nobody should be doing it following him. I mean, you don't want to take away from [him], and he's done a remarkable job there. You don't want to take away from him.
"Let him be the guy. Sort of like in Florida when we wrestled in territories, Dusty [Rhodes] was the guy that bled. He was the guy that bled. So he's the guy that bleeds for your company and bleeds for his act. So if it's done well and presented well, I think some people may get really behind it."
Moxley said in a recent interview that blood is "part of the aesthetic" and "adds realism" to the product. He compared professional wrestling to combat sports such as college wrestling, UFC, and boxing where they have timeouts to patch up wounds. Moxley also questioned what pro wrestlers were made of if they're not bleeding in the ring.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Tuesday with The Taskmaster" with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.