Shawn Michaels To Blame For WWE’s Blood Ban?
WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels was Chris Jericho’s guest on this week’s installment of Talk is Jericho. In the second part of the podcast, Michaels and Jericho talked about their famous feud from 2008 and revealed the real reason why WWE no longer allows blood.
Back at the Great American Bash in July of 2008, Michaels and Jericho were supposed to have the blow off to their feud. However, Michaels ended up bleeding so badly that the referee was forced to stop the match and declare Chris Jericho the winner. After the match, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon declared that bleeding would no longer be allowed in WWE.
Jericho: “The blow off was supposed to be at ‘SummerSlam’ for our angle, and one little detour was the first match we had is when I beat you up so bad they had to call it. You were bleeding. That was the last time Vince [McMahon] allowed blood in WWE.
Michaels: “Yeah, they’re no longer allowed to have blood because I got too much that night. Before the match, I begged Vince and told him ‘I have to bleed for this angle. You gotta let me get some color up over my eye,’ and he said ‘Okay, just get a little.’ For the record, I sincerely only meant to get a little. But I did it, and I hit that bad boy, and it was so awesome!”
WWE has had a “no color” policy since the summer of 2008 partially because of Michaels and partially because of some of their sponsorship deals. There has been blood in the ring since that night in 2008 — sometimes accidental, sometimes on purpose.
There are a lot of past and current WWE wrestlers who feel like the “no color” policy hurts the company at times, but their opinions don’t matter, as Vince McMahon — at least for now — is dead-set on keeping blood banned.
As of right now, if a WWE superstar bleeds in the ring on purpose, he’ll be hit with a heavy fine. Chris Jericho told the story in his latest book where Batista was hit with a six-figure fine for bleeding in the ring. Since then, there hasn’t been anyone in WWE that has bled in the ring on purpose.
There is a chance that at some point WWE will allow blood sporadically. Back in the mid-90s, there was a “no color” policy in WWE, but when WWE decided to become edgier in the late-90s, the “no bleeding” rule was thrown out the window.
Up until 2008, Vince McMahon wasn’t dead-set on banning blood. But, because Shawn Michaels bled so much at the Great American Bash 2008, McMahon decided enough was enough and put an end to blood in WWE.
[Image via WWE]
