Although it was planned, Brock Lesnar’s cut during WWE Backlash didn’t involve a blade. Instead, Lesnar purposefully made sure to strike his head forcefully against the exposed turnbuckle in order to bleed.
WWE has a no-blood policy, and for years, their policy has been to instruct referees to stop the match and clean up the blood so that it does not appear on camera. This weekend, however, Lesnar was subject to different rules at WWE Backlash in Puerto Rico, according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio.
“They let [the blood] go because that was the script,” Meltzer said. “It’s unusual if it’s anyone else.”
Alvarez mentioned Finn Balor being cut during his WrestleMania match with Edge. Although the cameraman did not capture the cut, they did not attempt to cover up Lesnar’s bleeding during Backlash.
Meltzer added, “It was part of the show. Brock Lesnar has different rules than anybody else. We’ve seen it how many times on pay-per-views? Probably a half dozen times, maybe more. If Brock Lesnar wants to do color, Brock Lesnar can do color. Everybody else might get in trouble for it but he has different rules. It’s crazy because if Brock Lesnar insists on getting color, they might as well let him blade rather than risk a concussion or something dangerous by running his head into the metal buckle as hard as he can to split his head open. He’s done that more than once. He’s done that into the [ring] post too.”
In previous Lesnar matches, a lot of blood has been shed, most notably at SummerSlam 2016 when Lesnar cut open Randy Orton with elbows to the top of the head. Many people backstage were shocked by the scene, which resulted in Chris Jericho challenging Lesnar, but it was later discovered that the graphic moment had been planned in advance. At SummerSlam 2014, John Cena bled during his match with Brock Lesnar. Wrestlers have in the past received fines for bleeding.
Jericho revealed that he and Batista paid a fine because Batista bled during their match several years ago. As a result, Jericho and the match’s agent (Dean Malenko) each received a $5,000 fine while Batista received a $100,000 fine.
During his segment with Cody Rhodes on Monday night’s episode of RAW, Lesnar made an appearance with a significant head wound and a black eye.
