AEW Blood & Guts is an annual professional wrestlingtelevision special produced by the American promotionAll Elite Wrestling (AEW) since 2021. The event airs mid-year as a special episode of the promotion's flagship weekly television program, Wednesday Night Dynamite; it originally aired on TNT in 2021, but has aired on TBS since 2022. The concept of the event comes from the Blood and Guts match, which is AEW's version of the classic WarGames match in which two teams fight inside a roofed cell structure that surrounds two rings placed side-by-side. Each main event match of the card is contested under the Blood and Guts stipulation.
The inaugural event was originally scheduled to occur in March 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was delayed and instead took place in May 2021. The 2022 event moved it to June before moving to July beginning with the 2023 event. Beginning with the 2022 event, a special episode of Friday Night Rampage titled Royal Rampage has been taped in conjunction with the Blood & Guts special.
History
On July 25, 2019, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE), as a publicly traded company, conducted a conference call to announce its second-quarter fiscal year 2019 results. During the call, Eric Katz of Wolfe Research, LLC, asked WWE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vince McMahon questions regarding naming Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman as Executive Directors to WWE and its relationship to the future of WWE content, especially with stricter Broadcast Standards and Practices at the Fox network for SmackDown's upcoming move to broadcast television. McMahon responded to Katz's question:
We're going to be a bit edgier, but still remain in the PG environment. We just haven't come anywhere close actually to going into another level. So that will be something we'll do in terms of direction of content, more controversy, better storylines, et cetera. But at the same time, we're not going to go back to the Attitude Era, and we're not going to do blood and guts and things of that nature such as being done on perhaps a new potential competitor. We're just not going to go back to that gory crap that we graduated from. And again, a more sophisticated product, again, attracting much better writers and attracting better management, and things of that nature. So again, as I said, I feel really good about it.[1][2]
The term "blood and guts" used by McMahon was perceived as a reference to rival wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW).[3] On November 13, 2019, AEW filed a trademark for "Blood & Guts," a play on McMahon's term. During Revolution on February 29, 2020, AEW announced that the March 25 episode of Wednesday Night Dynamite would be subtitled Blood & Guts, and feature the promotion's first WarGames match, billed as a "Blood and Guts match" since the WarGames trademark is owned by WWE.[4][5]
The inaugural event was originally scheduled to take place on March 25, 2020, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey,[6][7] but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8] Over a year later, Blood & Guts was officially rescheduled to air as the May 5, 2021, episode of Dynamite on TNT and be held at Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida due to the ongoing pandemic.[9] The event returned in June 2022 and was held at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan due to AEW's resumption of live touring in July 2021. Instead of airing on TNT, the 2022 event aired on TBS as Dynamite moved to TBS in January 2022.[10] The 2023 event then moved Blood & Guts to July.[11]
Royal Rampage
Beginning with the 2022 event, Friday Night Rampage - which is usually taped at the same venue Wednesday nights following the Dynamite broadcast - has featured "Royal Rampage", a modified Rumble rulesbattle royal specifically adapted to accommodate the two-ring setup used for Blood & Guts. The winner of Royal Rampage receives a future championship match.[12][13]
Concept
The concept of the event comes from the Blood and Guts match, and each main event match of the card is contested under this stipulation. It uses the classic WarGames format from Jim Crockett Promotions, which differ from the modified WWE format. The match features two rings enclosed by a steel cage, which was developed by wrestler Virgil Runnels, better known as "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.[4][5]
The notable format differences between the classic Crockett rules and the modified WWE rules include the cage itself - the Crockett version uses an enclosed cage, while WWE uses an open top cage, and under Crockett rules the match can only be won with a submission or surrender, where in WWE the match can also end by pinfall.[14]
