spookydust

I need to watch it again. I keep replaying every single spot in my head and wincing remembering just how much happened in 30 minutes. It was disgusting, it was perverted, it went so hard, it was raw humanity performing at one of the farthest extremes we've seen associated with any televised wrestling promotion ever, and it was art. The longest Texas Death Match in AEW history happened last week at AEW Full Gear 2023. It was the best match that night, and it stole a show desperately in need of stealing. A bloody, exhausted Swerve Strickland hung the entire massive frame of 'Hangman' Adam Page from a chain draped over the turnbuckle, and the hangman could stand no more. Every inch of the ring was covered in blood; the ropes, the mat, the apron, the barricade, the crowd... Depraved, and beautiful. I couldn't look away from what I was seeing, because I've never seen anything like it before. A black man in a crimson mask, smiling, laughing, stapling himself in the chest, yet somehow always in control. Let's talk about the history of blood in wrestling.

(CW: video w/ The Juice below the Read More - lets fuckin go)

Blood. Everyone's got a lot in them. Almost every living thing on this planet spends most of its waking life trying to keep all of our blood inside of us as much as possible. There are very few rare societal exceptions where it is okay to bleed in public, and professional wrestling has purposefully built upon that expectation since inception. So what is the point of blood? In fiction, blood raises the stakes of a dramatic encounter, or re-centers focus upon the human condition. In reality, blood is most often read as a cost, a quality of health (or the lack thereof), or a binding agent; bloodsport, blood-letting, the blood of the covenant. In wrestling, straddling the line between reality and fiction, it's much simpler: Blood is Work. Blood is what elongated Ric Flair's seemingly endless career through the 2000s, bleeding is great for old people who can't take bumps like they used to. Blood is what brought HHH to his peak, it's great for igniting or settling a rivalry, especially if there aren't other stakes on the line like a championship title: a blood feud. Blood is what rocketed Britt Baker's flagging career, super useful for establishing your tentpole wrestlers. Historically, you always bleed in Puerto Rico because their massive outdoor arenas are sold out and you want abuelita in the nosebleeds to get her money's worth. Shayna Baszler made her debut with Monday Night Raw by biting Becky Lynch on the neck like a dog? I guess? This was work done specifically so she would trend on twitter. These examples all use blood as work. But blood is also what makes myths. As New Jack said, "What I [did] to him, people are gonna be talking about this ten years from now... Well, it's been 20 years and we're still talking about it." Blood is a political tool that wrestlers use to paint on canvas with aplomb, but never without control. They are professionals.¹

Who gets to bleed? On AEW they feature a wide variety of deathmatches, much more regularly than their competition, so you've got white dudes, latino dudes, japanese dudes, white women, latina women, the british, and as always: Blondes. The person who shattered the glass ceiling all over their pretty black face was Ricky Starks a month ago. Pretty Ricky is not only the first black man in AEW in a deathmatch, but the first black man in all history to be in a Texas Death Match.² They were on TV though, so my man got a busted lip and bled a little from the mouth after taking a chained running knee to the face. Off and away from TV exec's sheepish "values" and "ethics" there is GCW who very recently hosted the first all black deathmatch between two of wrestling's wildest: Hoodfoot and Billy Dixon. Real nasty bloody work, and then a picture perfect back drop right in the center of it *chefs kiss*. Going back into history, the most influential black deathmatch wrestlers are Abdullah The Butcher and New Jack. The way these two men of different eras work their matches could not be more dissimilar, but they are undoubtedly two of wrestling's best gimmick artists, and that is no accident. They use blood to wrestle short and excruciatingly violent matches. The biggest difference being when New Jack does it, he is famously considered as "the wrestler who took it too far."

Who decides what is "Too far"? Society had no say in what happened between Swerve and Hangman. The story going into the match was personal and wholly consuming. They built a story worth attempting to kill over. As Hangman drank deep from Swerve's open wound it became immediately clear that the only two men in control of this match were the ones inside that ring. This gives the public two options: Deny that this match is controlled and blame the company for sponsoring it, or Accept that this match is controlled and see how far these two will go together. 'Too far' is entirely culturally subjective which means blood, and the automagical success that historically comes with it, is gatekept by a society that struggles to find innovative ways to push even the most talented black wrestlers. This sounds bizarro world right? If I wanted to protect my black wrestlers, wouldn't I keep them out of dangerous match types? Wouldn't I want to avoid them getting a stigma tied to New Jack? Well that's the double-bind of respectability politics, because now you are gatekeeping a match-format that allows wrestlers to express themselves in unbelievable ways. For Swerve, we saw a man who was craven but calculating, so desperate for control that he'd staple his own chest to show how 'not owned' he's been by the cowboy. Conversely, many think Swerve went 'too far' in this Texas Death Match when his teammate, Brian Cage, came in and deeply interfered with the match. Totally fair, maybe your kayfabe illusion that this was all completely out of control was ruined by that, but also you're fighting Swerve Strickland, and that is his WHOLE schtick: tacky underhanded cheating right after proving he could probably do this on his own. Swerve is the epitome of a DC Comics Villain! Killshot is real, and he is in your home, my guy. Why'd you get into a match with no rules in the first place? Oh right, Swerve played your ego, again, and again, and again. You asked for the Texas Death Match, but you hosted it from inside Swerve's House.

This history is why it struck me so severely suddenly realizing how important it is that Swerve Strickland was in a Texas Death Match. Swerve bled through his braids, wearing a crimson mask atop gold teeth, down his tattooed arms which pooled and coagulated for over the 30 minutes, soaking the previously-white tape wrapped around his wrists. From behind the mask, he smiled. Overjoyed at the misery of his victim and at the control he had over every single onlooker, all onlookers paled by the sight yet vocally encouraging it to continue. Pundits of weak stature called this match "Blood Porn". And I deeply hope this turned them on like that implies, because these men looked so hot in this match. Hot, Stone cold, Raw, Hard - the way I describe swerve and the hangman together in the ring are adjectives usually reserved for meat and porn. The sexual dynamic within this deathmatch was not lost on many onlookers who have stylized the match in artwork.

And it sure wasn't lost on Swerve Strickland who also had a rebuttal on Instagram.

Hangman and Swerve are American Gods, may their immortal suffering be exchanged for glory within our lifetime.

This is why the artists on stage use their own blood on each other. It's a matter of work, and compared to our previous examples of how blood is used, what Strickland and Page put on canvas was a maximalist work. 30 minutes of constant heavyweight strikes, flips, blood, weapons, distractions, misdirections, suplexes, slams, and a constant escalation leading to the final climax of Swerve hanging Adam Page from a metal chain. The entire time, you don't know what will give out first, their cardiovascular stamina, their strength, or the amount of blood in their body. There is plenty of room in wrestling for other directions and forms of expression, but this stands as a modern masterpiece. And as far as AEW goes, there was nothing left for any of the other relatively-normal matches that night because these two did more with each other than anything you could reasonably do in 30 minutes.

From my own perspective as a deathmatch fan, this is among the current best and it pushes the medium forward as the most public display of the safest formats within the artform. There will always be folks across the medium of wrestling who push the envelope as they explore beyond the lines of cultural ethics and norms, and from those people's lessons is exactly where we get this match. The stunts performed in this match had well known and well traversed risks thanks to a thorough history of deathmatch, so while at any moment the worst things could potentially happen as it ever could, despite how much blood leaked from their foreheads it never stepped outside of the range of professional deathmatch work (somehow??) and even without using most of the modern deathmatch toolkit. There are so many places for these two to explore from here, especially with established signature weapons: chains, cinder blocks, and barbed wire.

There was a subdued moment in the middle, where Swerve rolled out of the ring to get some space, bleeding profusely. He swung his head in a way that whipped blood over the crowd and the camera got this great look beyond him of a crowd enraptured. I hope a lot of people became blood perverts³ that night, as they may have witnessed for the first time standing immediately before them: dying men who have never felt more alive.

Thanks for reading!

1. Kofi Kingston used blood on a random Monday Night where they had a rematch for their belts after a pay-per-view, that night didn't matter and the outcome was expected so why did Kofi Kingston use blood? Why, they were competing against Hillary vs. Trump on the other channel. You can always try to use blood to pop a rating.

2. Stat From Cagematch. This is kinda a dubious honor in a fake sport, but I find it politically fascinating as "Texas Death" is more of a flavoring than anything. Through history, a lot of latino and japanese men get to take on the violent, hyper-macho, lone star moniker of 'Texas', and as an exception to prove the rule even Mickie James, a legendary wrestler who passionately represents women and native americans gets to have Texas Death, and by god did she earn a beer from every bar she enters in Texas. (As I assume is the prize for the winner of any one of these)

3. I want to add at the bottom my own little blood pervert anecdote. My dad took me to Wrestlemania this last year where he got to achieve his lifelong dream of going to Wrestlemania with his sons. And the day before that, I got to achieve my lifelong dream of taking my dad to see deathmatch wrestling. I explained to him who our local hero Nick Wayne was, and how he'd become the GCW Tag Team Champions, and he was so excited to cheer on a 17-year-old from Everett. So when he went over the top rope and hit the hardwood of the ballroom we were in, I knew exactly what was about to happen right in front of us. He gets up dripping with blood and my dad whispers to me, "should we do something? This is bad!" and I just respond, "It's okay, his mom's right over there." Fifteen minutes later, my dad had to content with Yoshihiko, and he still texts me sometimes to tell me when he's thinking about this show.