In a recent interview with ComicBook, All Elite Wrestling Executive Vice President and talent Cody Rhodes discussed several topics, including the company’s approach to blood being featured as part of their product.

“Well this is a bigger conversation but I’ll bring it up. Wrestling fans and wrestling analysts have debated how they analyze wrestling. Do they analyze it as sport or do they analyze it as entertainment? I’m not going to tell you which it is because everyone should already know which it is. Which means we should be held to the same standard that Hollywood, that movies, that TV, that Broadway are. I don’t mean to sound pretentious in saying that but we should be held to those same standards. When it comes to violence in our industry, when it comes to blood, when it comes to those things it should never be a topic but I love that it is and I understand why. But when it comes up it just … You’ve got to pick a lane. If that makes any sense.

It doesn’t help that half of social media remain in this gray, it’s not black or white, but you got to pick a lane. This isn’t ballet, in terms of the physical side of it. It can get rather hairy and I did not anticipate the amount of blood (with Dustin Rhodes) but if you’re looking for violence and physical storytelling that’s a big part of what AEW is going to bring. There’s not any guidelines to how our pay-per-views are going to be. They’re treated as a sport centric product. You can see it in the NBA Finals, somebody gets their eye busted. You see it in boxing, somebody gets a hematoma on their forehead. It happens and it will happen at AEW.”

The interview is available in full at this link.