In professional wrestling, blading is the practice of intentionally cutting oneself to provoke bleeding.[1] It is also known as juicing, gigging, or getting color.[1] Similarly, a blade is an object used for blading, and a bladejob is a specific act of blading. The blood in pro wrestling is almost never, as often suspected, theatrical makeup, but actual blood, and the scars borne by longtime pro wrestlers are real ones.[2] The act is usually done a good length into the match as the blood will mix with the flowing sweat to make the wound look like much more blood is flowing from it than there actually is.[3] "Juicing" which occurs outside the storyline is said to be juicing the hardway, or legitimately bleeding.[4]
Contents |
Prior to the advent of blading, most storyline blood in wrestling came from one wrestler deliberately splitting the flesh over their opponent's eyebrow bone with a well placed and forceful punch.[5] In his third autobiography The Hardcore Diaries, Mick Foley cites Terry Funk as one of the few remaining active wrestlers who knows how to "bust an eyebrow open" in this way. The forehead has always been the preferred blading surface, due to the abundance of blood vessels. A cut in this area will bleed freely for quite some time and will heal quickly.[2] A cut in this location will allow the blood to mix in with the sweat on the wrestler's face, giving them the proverbial "crimson mask" effect.
In modern North American pro wrestling, blading is almost exclusively performed by and on male performers; blading of women is extremely rare due to the risk of adverse publicity and the increasing use of female performers as "eye candy."
Typically, a wrestler will use a razor or other blade hidden in the tape covering his fingers or part of his hand(s) or somewhere else on his person.[2][6] The wrestler, however, always runs the risk of cutting too deeply and slicing an artery in the forehead.[1] In 2004, Eddie Guerrero did this during Judgment Day 2004, resulting in blood loss severe enough to affect him for the next two weeks of shows.
Some wrestlers like Abdullah the Butcher,[7] Dusty Rhodes, New Jack, and Devon Hughes (Brother Devon / D-Von Dudley) have massive, disfiguring scars on their heads from frequently blading throughout their careers. According to Mick Foley, the scars in Abdullah's forehead are so deep that he enjoys holding coins or gambling chips in them to entertain and/or scare people.[7]
Today, blading is a lot less popular than in the past, due to the prevalence of AIDS and hepatitis.[1][2] In the 1980s, the willingness to blade was seen as an advantage of new wrestlers.[8] From July 2008 to around the summer of 2011, due to its PG rating, World Wrestling Entertainment did not allow wrestlers to blade themselves. In most cases, any blood coming from the wrestlers are out of storyline and legitimate. However, with the 2011 shift towards edgier content, blading during matches is becoming more common again.
Perhaps the most famous such incident was a bladejob performed by Japanese wrestler The Great Muta in a 1992 match with Hiroshi Hase; the amount of blood Muta lost was so great that many smarks to this day judge the severity of bladejobs on the Muta Scale.[9]
Another such incident was during an ECW house show when a young wrestler known as Mass Transit forged documents and lied to ECW Owner/Promoter Paul Heyman about his age and amount of training. He then asked his opponent, New Jack, to blade him. Jack cut through two arteries in Mass Transit's head when he bladed the young man, and fifty stitches were required to close the wound. A wrestler allowing someone else to blade him is extremely rare. In Bret Hart's autobiography Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling, Hart stated that he bladed Steve Austin during the infamous No Disqualification Submission Match at Wrestlemania 13, at a time when blading was forbidden. Hart and Austin both denied any blading involved when confronted by management.
During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Mickey Rourke spoke about his experience with gigging himself for a scene in the 2008 movie The Wrestler. Rourke untruthfully agreed to gig at the initial request of director Darren Aronofsky in hopes that he would revoke the demand come production time. Indeed, later during filming, Aronofsky admitted that Rourke needn't actually gig; however, by his own will, Rourke decided to go through with it anyway.[10] In the film itself, Rourke's character is seen preparing for a match by wrapping a razor blade inside his wrist tape.