Sean Waltman Comments On Brutality Of AEW Blood And Guts
On the latest episode of Pro Wrestling 4 Life, Sean Waltman sat down with MLW owner Court Bauer and MLW World Champion Jacob Fatu. Waltman and his co-host, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman, also discussed the latest news of the past week to open the shpw. Waltman gave his thoughts on the AEW Blood and Guts match, the centerpiece for AEW's first Dynamite to be the number one show on cable for the week.
"I thought it was really good for that type of match. I thought it lived up to what it was supposed to be," Waltman stated. "When you're hyping a match, a lot of times, things don't turn out anything like it should. It was hyped, but this one did. I was surprised it was on TV, should have been a pay-per-view."
Blood and Guts ended with The Pinnacle's victory after the Inner Circle surrendered and MJF threw Chris Jericho off the cage. Jericho has responded to the criticism of the fall that exposed the cardboard that Jericho fell on, and Waltman noted one change that could have been made.
"It doesn't help. It doesn't help," Waltman admitted. "I just think if they would have had a different camera angle, we wouldn't be talking about this."
It was reported that officials in WWE were not big fans of Blood and Guts, believing it had set the business back 30 years. Waltman revealed his reaction to the report and recalled a similar reaction from WWE in the early '90s.
"When you first told me about the reaction from them, I was like, 'Really?' But maybe if you're just talking about dealing with sponsors because there's big-time corporate sponsors involved in wrestling these days, well, WWE," Waltman pointed out. "And so I guess I can understand why they might feel that way because wrestling gets painted with a very broad brush.
"I remember back when ECW was hot, we were still doing the cartoon thing in WWF. I remember Pat Patterson one time really shi**ing on the ECW thing. I guess just because of the content, and the thing about it is we ended up doing the same s**t a couple of years later at the peak of the industry and for the company. I mean, it wasn't as brutal as ECW, but we got a lot of stuff from ECW."
The complaint for some was that Blood and Guts was too violent. Waltman commented on if he felt the violence crossed a line.
"No, but who am I to say? Some people like that," Waltman noted. "There's a place for a lot of things. Wrestling doesn't belong to any one company."
One of the other talked about moments from the match was when Sammy Guevara hit Wardlow with an unprotected head shot with a chair. Speaking as someone from an era where those were the norm, Waltman gave his insight on unprotected chair shots still being used today.
"Yeah, we shouldn't be, especially unprotected," Waltman said. "Put your hands up at least. We know enough about what happens if you get hit in the head like that. I wish it wouldn't be done today in 2021. Come on. There's other things we can do out there."
A new episode of Sean Waltman's Pro Wrestling 4 Life drops every Thursday morning on all major podcast platforms and in video form at YouTube.com/XPac!