GREENSBORO, NC — The crowd is buzzing 30 minutes to showtime for AEW Blood & Guts. “You’ve never seen anything like this,” a man behind me tells his girlfriend attending her first pro wrestling show, “it’s going to be so, so violent” he adds — in tone that’s part-content warning, part-gladiatorial excitement.
History is being made on Wednesday night as All Elite Wrestling is having its first ever women’s Blood & Guts match. A match type both lauded and condemned for its brutality, 12 wrestlers fight in two connected rings, encased in a giant rectangular steel cage. Inside the ring anything goes, and a team can’t lose until one person quits. It’s known for being a bloody showcase of hardcore wrestling, an ode to the Texas Deathmatch, and a wink to the memory of ECW — a promotion AEW owner Tony Khan has a fondness for.
Harsh critics see Blood & Guts as pointless risk for performers at best, torture porn at worst, but these matches do have a distinct purpose. It’s a way to weave multiple rivalries together at once, while also showcasing mid-card talent. If executed properly, the match should allow everyone to shine, while adding a new element to a wrestler to present them in a new light. That’s precisely what happened on Wednesday.
Women’s Blood & Guts
Before the show this was the match that got the biggest pop from the crowd. Can we take a second to step back and appreciate how much AEW women’s division is cooking right now? The men’s side of the roster has so many storylines going at once, many intertwined — sometimes to its own detriment. Meanwhile the women are telling the best stories in the company by focusing on simplicity.
The driving force behind this Blood & Guts match was to set up the women’s world championship match at Full Gear between Mercedes Mone and Kris Statlander — but beyond that there was so much to like. This was also about establishing Marina Shafir vs. Toni Storm as a rivalry to watch, and it achieved that as well.
The pacing was perfect, the violence was there, but a little more muted — which made the match more enjoyable for me. Ultimately this also achieved the goal of the match which elevated Skye Blue to a whole other level. Her heel turn in recent months hasn’t been easy to buy into — but at Blood & Guts she cemented herself as a wrestler to watch in the division due to her work in the ring, the punishment she took, and finding another gear.
The emotion at play at the end of the match was next level. Mina Shirakawa being brutalized in the middle of the ring, Toni Storm looking on helpless — throwing in the towel for her friend because she couldn’t watch it go on any longer.
A perfect match from beginning to end, the wrestlers involved in the first women’s Blood & Guts should be proud of themselves.
Will Hobbs vs. Hangman Adam Page
Easily the best part of this match for me was sitting immediately behind Hangman’s entire family. Having a whole row to themselves, it was fun to hear aunts, uncles, parents, cousins — everyone witness someone they love in the middle of a wrestling match.
We knew from the jump that this was going to be a Hangman win. The belt wasn’t going to change hands 10 days removed from Full Gear, but the Fall’s Count Anywhere match was a nice palate cleanser on a night of violence.
Two fans sitting next to be got wind of the relationship and asked “Do y’all ever get used to seeing him do this?” The one-word response was perfect “Never,” Page’s aunt said.
This match achieved its two main goals: Establishing Hobbs as a legitimate upper-mid card guy who can carry a main event when needed, while also having an angle at the close to set up Samoa Joe vs. Hangman Page at Full Gear as a cage match. That is going to be wild.
Men’s Blood & Guts
Darby Allin already has a reputation for treating his body with reckless abandon, and hat made it terrifying when it came to imagining what he might do in a match like this. There was pretty much everything: A skateboard with thumb tacks, a Coffin Drop onto a chain, another off to top of the cage while hanging on like a spider monkey — oh, and yeah, he went through a flaming table too and caught fire for a brief moment.
This match definitely got to be a little much at times, as one would expect. There were tacks, broken glass, a staple gun, with chairs and tables galore Almost everyone was left bleeding in the ring, and the conclusion was one of the most fascinating finishes to a match I’d seen in a while.
Shortly after this moment Kyle O’Reilly reversed the bulldog choke into a series of ankle locks, with Jon Moxley eventually succumbing and quitting the match. I didn’t have KOR winning three in a row against Mox, or making him tap three times in a row — and this opens up the end of the Death Riders with Moxley as their leader. The brash, tough, never-say-die veneer wears thin when the leader of the stable keeps quitting — and that opens up a lot of intrigue.
Top to bottom this was a fantastic show and everyone left happy. Blood & Guts in Greensboro was a triumph that furthered AEW’s most important storylines, while also showcasing the breadth of talent on the roster. It was the perfect send off to the “season,” which will officially end after Full Gear when we get the roster shakeup that happens after their big marquee PPVs.
It wasn’t a show that left everyone wanting more, because brutal matches do that — but it was a triumph in brutality.
