First Blood or How Hannibal Just Changed The Biz Forever

[THTRobtaylor]

There has been a massive lawsuit going on for a number of years between Indy wrestler and one time WWE hopeful Devon "Hannibal" Nicholson and Abdullah The Butcher, which has been resolved with a judge ruling Butcher guilty of Assault, Battery and negligence by infecting Hannibal with Hep C.

Nicholson was able to prove that Butcher hadn't informed him and recklessly bled over him and deliberately bladed him, causing the infection. Nicholson has been awarded $2.3m in damages, pretty much anything Abdullah ever owned is gonna be gone. Nicholson lost his WWE developmental deal as a result of Abdullah's actions and the infections so it's not an unreasonable sum for a developmental guy to potentially make in a WWE career and more if they make it to the main roster.

Ironically it came 20 years to the day of Chuck Austin winning his case against the WWF and a $26m payout from Vince over a "botch" that many claim he himself caused during a Rocker Dropper from Marty Jannetty.

This is a water (if not blood) shed moment for sports entertainment. Why? Because this NEARLY happened in WWE a few years ago when Bob Orton Jr bled over Undertaker without informing him of the disease. Swap Hannibal for Taker and Abdullah for Orton and that payout is probably 10 times the amount.

The short of it is it is HIGHLY unlikely we will ever see blading or blood in a WWE match again. However much the talent is screened under the wellness policy the risk is no longer worth it.
They are already uber strict on blood thinners, hence the issues Ric Flair and Kevin Nash have had at times but now it is very likely that any bleeding at all will lead to a stopped match until the injury is cleaned up or if it can't be, match over.

It happens in every other sport where blood is a factor, it is treated but even if a footballer has blood on his shirt, it must be changed, if a boxer's cut cannot be cleaned or stopped then the fight is stopped. WWE can no longer risk blood on their ring canvas, on opponents trunks, ring attire or bodies.

Blading has been frowned upon for many years but select individuals have been allowed to do it on occasion or simply hit their opponent in such a way as to cause a hardway, think of Brock v Trips a while back... Brock didn't blade but Trips made sure he bled.

All it takes is one main roster talent to either not be truthful or a test to miss something and bang, a big name is infected and even a lower level WWE guy these days would be looking at a much bigger payout.

TNA, GFW, even lower level indies now have to take account of this... If for one second it was believed that the promoter who put on the match (in this case it was Puerto Rico, where as history proves, anything goes) then they too can be sued...if that's Vince or Dixie or Jarrett... big trouble.

So my questions are these...

Do we "need blood" in wrestling anymore?

Look at some of the greatest matches in history and blood is a major factor, either by blade or hardway. Would Austin's face turn and the explosion have taken off as it did without that crimson mask in the Sharpshooter? Of course not. But at the same time there have also been a lot of obvious and dangerous at time blade jobs and hard way injuries too. Ric Flair at Mania 8 was a clinic but Ric bladed without permission and it soured his relationship with Vince and ruined his push.

Blood DOES add to the drama, it shows a hard fought match, where someone is literally giving their blood to win. But the dangers now far outweigh the benefits. Hannibal probably thought he had a great match with Abby until he got sick.


Would it be appropriate to suspend talents who intentionally bleed?

You hear it all the time, rumors of talent being de-pushed, punished, shunned because of botches that put a fellow talent at risk. But what if Triple H or someone decides to "go outside the lines" and either blade or cut their opponent/cause a hardway for the sake of the match? Just cos someone doesn't have a communicable blood disease doesn't mean they should be "ok to bleed". The rules need to be hard and fast and if a talent has responsibility for themselves under Wellness then they also do for fellow talent. I personally would have a blade job or questionable injury count as intentionally endangering yourself and opponent and a suspension matter.

Would it ruin wrestling?

No, cos most matches don't have blood. We saw a snippet of what COULD happen with Bryan's injury a while back, when the match was stopped and it caused that shoot argument backstage with Trips... Imagine the main event of Mania being "blood stopped" cos of a botch or someone getting "clever". After all Vince declared "Sports Entertainment" to end the need for things like doctors and the Athletic Commision type rules. But as WWE in particular has found with other issues recently, you can't appear to be a "proper company" and live by your own rules. You have to adhere to other rules and every other similar entertainment or sport would stop for blood or remove the player etc...regardless of their status or the match at hand.

This ruling may just force that hand to do just that...WWE in particular had their near miss. They might not be so lucky next time.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

I see all these changes that are supposed to be signs of the progress within wrestling, and the WWE in particular, and from the standpoint of protecting employees and their general well-being, it certainly is.

But what I'm not seeing is the benefit that is trickling down to viewers of their product. I'm not seeing how the WWE product that we view has been better for all of these things. That may sound a bit bloodthirsty, but there you have it. We'll go on and on about Magnum T.A. vs. Tully Blanchard in their I Quit Match and Undertaker Vs. Mankind in Hell in a Cell, and the thing that makes these matches are the violence. Wrestling is choreographed violence more often than it is choreographed sport. If the WWE sees a litigation risk from having that violence, whether it be blading, or chair shots, or certain moves like diving headbutts or piledrivers, then so far all they are doing is removing these elements without adding anything back in. In fact, I've seen this discussed to some degree in other threads.

What's the first thing you can expect in terms of crowd reaction when someone applies a headlock:

"BORING."

Hell, the IWC frequently calls these "restholds", i.e. it's not a critical part of the match...it's a chance for two guys to catch their breath. Yet you would think something like submission or chain wrestling (again, a choreographed version) would be something that would fit in with these new rules.

I'm waiting to see what the WWE does other than react to these kinds of events.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I first heard about the incident with Bob Orton, Sr. not too long after WWE officially went back to the PG label. Much like the potential trauma wrestlers can suffer due to unprotected hits to the head, especially with a steel chair, I don't think many of us considered or really even genuinely considered the ramifications that could be caused from blading in matches. We simply figured that it was a tiny nick, most of the time, across their foreheads at a certain point in the match in which their adrenaline is up, they're sweaty, their hearts are pumping, respiration rate is up, etc. Some used to take blood thinners just prior to the match so that they'd bleed more & easier. I can honestly say that, during the Attitude Era, the possibility that these guys could catch life threatening diseases due to blading never crossed my mind.

Some of my closest friends got into the business back in the very early 2000s, a few are still involved today working the indy scene, and some of the stories I've heard over the years coupled with learning a few things as I've learned as I've grown older make me very wary of blading anymore. Drug use in various forms has been a problem in pro wrestling for a while, as we all know, but it's been an epidemic on the indy scene. When you mix that with all the various sexual encounters with random women ranging from hookers to ring rats that you know guys from the smallest indy company all the way up to big stars on the WWE roster take full advantage of, you're definitely flirting with disaster.

As to whether or not blading could ruin wrestling, it's a possibility. I've frequently spoken out about how far out of hand society tends to get sometimes in regards to political correctness; people sometimes taking the smallest thing and trying to turn it into a federal case, sometimes for lack of anything more constructive to do, which is only compounded due to the rise of social media, people trying to turn something that really isn't said or meant in a controversial way into something controversial, etc. However, one upside to things is how this obsession with social media and political correctness can bring subjects to light that people may not otherwise hear about, thereby bringing about some changes that do need to be made.

WWE dodged a bullet roughly a decade ago with the Bob Orton incident. For one thing, they're damn lucky that Taker wasn't infected. I remember reading that he had a fit backstage, and rightly so, when he found out. If something like that happened today in WWE, you know it would leak out one way or another and mainstream media would be all over it. Various news organizations love juicy stories, as we all know, and WWE's status as being the biggest wrestling company in the world is something of a liability in such situations. Even though the wrestling industry as a whole has had the same problems to a FAR worse degree than WWE in many cases, you never hear about it. It's WWE that winds up having to essentially eat shit sandwich that follows all by itself. Bob Orton's side of the story, according to what I've read, is that he told Big Johnny that he had Hep C, but told him to still go through with blading during Taker's attack on him during his match with Randy at Armageddon 2005. Whether or not it's true, just that kind of allegation today could result in criminal charges being filed against Big Johnny and possibly WWE itself. Taker probably could have sued, and I imagine he may very well have if he hadn't been lucky enough to avoid being infected.

Even though the WWE Wellness Policy was initiated primarily, at the time, to ultimately placate Congress and keep them from following through on their threat to regulate WWE, testing blood taken for infections diseases or other medical conditions is the responsible thing to do. The fact that they were able to learn that MVP had a serious heart condition via the Wellness Policy justifies its existence all by itself.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

I don't know how much of a watershed moment this is for wrestling in general, or the WWE in particular... because they've already all but eliminated blood and blading years ago.

Read Bret Hart's book, and he talks about the No Blood policy that Vince McMahon instituted back in the early 90's because he was concerned about the potential to transmit disease like AIDS. Up until he left the company in '97, he noted that any time a match with blood happened (one of his own or someone elses), the first thing the wrestlers would do when they got to the back was attempt to kayfabe the agents into believing that the blood was accidental. If they weren't believed, then they got fined for blading.

Vince got really lax on this policy during the Monday Night Wars (likely recognizing that blood equaled ratings) and made his own personal deal with the devil in that regard, but once that was well in hand, you'll notice that almost immediately there wasn't as much blood in WWE matches.

Fast forward to today, and it's been so long now, I seriously doubt that there's anyone on the current roster (save maybe Triple H) who even knows how to use a blade properly so that they aren't noticed by the fans at ringside. Plus they've already done this several times where they've stopped a match when someone gets cut to clean it up before continuing.

I've got mixed feelings about it all. Blood DOES add a lot to a match when used correctly. But it's a stupid practice, and the more we learn about disease and the various ways it can be transmitted, a dangerous practice as well. I'm more than willing to fore go the spectacle of blood in return for the health and safety of the guys putting their bodies on the line to entertain me.

As for Hannibal and his judgement? He won't ever see a dime, and likely only got the judgement because Abby didn't care to contest it... already knowing that since he resides in Georgia, Nicholson brought the suit in Canada, and that they couldn't prove conclusively that Abby did give him Hep C, it wouldn't hurt him anyways. It's going to cost Nicholson a lot more money in court costs to get the Canadian courts to appeal to the Georgia courts to enforce the judgement... and there's actually no guarantee that Georgia would. Even so, Abby is known to be smart with his money. If he's managed to hide his assets so the courts couldn't touch them, then there wouldn't be much of anything for Nicholson to get. Best case scenario is that in about 5 years time, Nicholson gets the title to the Rib Shack while Abby spends that time turning away customers and killing the business off.

Nicholson's a guy who'd bled all over the dirty rings of Puerto Rico prior, worked with Abby multiple times after the incident where Abby allegedly bladed him without permission (as well as prior... he was well aware of how Abby worked), and is honestly as carny as they get. True Abby does have Hep C, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that it was actually Nicholson who accidentally gave it to him, and not the other way around.