WWE have released a statement on a recent match which took place on AEW Rampage.
Several weeks ago, AEW held a brutal women’s street fight match on the New Year’s Smash edition of Rampage. The match included The Bunny, Penelope Ford, Anna Jay, Tay Conti, as well as lots of weapons and blood.
Last year, Vince McMahon stated during an investors call that he doesn’t see AEW as competition. This came after NXT moved to Tuesday nights, as they were previously running at the same time as AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights.
McMahon also referenced AEW during another investors call in 2019 ahead of AEW’s debut of Dynamite on TNT, describing them as ‘blood and guts’ and that WWE won’t be returning to the Attitude Era.
While WWE have reduced the amount of blood used during matches over the past couple of years, there are still instances where WWE dive into several aspects of previous eras, such as when Randy Orton set fire to ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt at TLC in 2020.
WWE have now released a statement to The Toronto Star regarding the Rampage match, which echoes McMahon’s previous comments regarding them seeing AEW as competition.
“If you look at the gory self-mutilation that bloodied several women in the December 31 event on TNT, it quickly becomes clear that these are very different businesses. We had an edgier product in the ‘Attitude” era and in a 2022 world, we don’t believe that type of dangerous and brutal display is appealing to network partners, sponsors, venues, children, or the general public as a whole“
