5 WWE gimmick matches and the reason why we don't see them anymore
Remember the days before gimmick matches?
No, me neither.
In the modern era, the WWE calendar is absolutely littered with them, with just about every other pay-per-view seeming to have some kind of gimmick-theme attached to it. But fanciful stipulations and specialist matches have been a staple of pro wrestling for decades now, from the early days of cage matches and bull-rope bouts to more recent concepts like Money in the Bank or the Elimination Chamber.
Still, for all those gimmicks that we do see these days, there are a number that have fallen by the wayside over the years as the business, and attitudes, have steadily evolved. Some have disappeared because they were just plain bad, while others have been scrapped due to changing priorities of the powers that be.
Today, we take a look at some such examples, rounding up five WWE gimmick matches and the reasons why we don’t see them anymore.
#1 First Blood match
As the name would suggest, the winner of a First Blood match is the first to make their opponent draw blood. It’s a simple enough concept, but one that’s also directly at odds with the company’s loosely-defined ‘no blood unless your name is Brock Lesnar’ policy.
The unofficial ban on bleeding in the ring came into play after an overzealous bladejob from Shawn Michaels at the 2008 Great American Bash. Michaels revealed on Talk is Jericho that he ‘sincerely only meant to get a little’ but ended up bleeding much heavier than planned, and in doing so forced Vince McMahon’s hand in drawing a line under bleeding in the ring.
Even before that incident, though, First Blood matches had gradually become tamer. Back at One Night Stand 2008, John Cena beat JBL in a finish that saw the latter use the old blood-capsule-in-a-condom trick, as opposed to blading or drawing blood the hard way.
That kind of gimmickry could still work today, but given the current nature of today’s product it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing any more First Blood bouts for the time being.