10 instances of blading that would get Superstars fired today
Blading is one of the most gruesome practices in the world of professional wrestling. It’s when a wrestler pulls out a previously-hidden blade or sharp object and cuts them in order to produce real blood. This has been done for decades all over the world but has been especially popular in the United States and in Canada.
WWE has had a love/hate relationship with blood for a very long time. It was once considered standard practice and was even encouraged for especially important matches, as the sight of blood did wonders to elevate the drama of the match in which it was seen.
But Vince McMahon banned blading once in the 1990s, only for it to return in full force in the Attitude Era and beyond. Then, when WWE went PG in 2008, blading was once again banned altogether.
Since then, there have been only a small handful of matches in which blood was seen. In some cases, the blood came out the hard way, that is, unintentionally through the severe use of force in a match. In a few other cases, wrestlers decided to blade despite the ban on the practice.
In one famous case, Batista and Chris Jericho were fined a significant sum of money for having bladed in their match together, with The Animal reporting to have been fined $100,000 for doing so.
Keep in mind, the blade job that took place that day wasn’t especially violent or gory. By comparison to wrestling history’s more famous blading incidents, it wasn’t that bad. But if any wrestler tried to replicate one of these ten blade jobs, they’d be out of a job as soon as the match ended.
#10 ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin’s blade job at WrestleMania 13
One of the most iconic scenes in WWE history was the sight of ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin bleeding profusely as he screamed in agony while locked in Bret Hart’s Sharpshooter.
Up until that point, blood hadn’t been seen very much in WWE, and the overall product was very tame and void of any real drama. So when Austin was busted open and bleed profusely, fans became much more invested in that match.
Furthermore, Austin refused to give up no matter how much pain Hart put him through and no matter how much blood he had lost. This led to one of the rare cases of a ‘double-turn’ in wrestling, as the once-beloved Bret Hart became a villain and the reviled Steve Austin became a gutsy babyface.
Though it wasn’t that much of a vicious bloodbath, the match itself marked a critical turning point in WWE history. But that was a time when WWE began shifting to a more mature market, which isn’t the case today. WWE shuns blood so much these days that even if these men had a perfect match, the blading would be cause for at least one of them to be fired.