Update on WWE’s Blood & Blading Policy Over The Rock & Cody Rhodes’ Brawl Segment on Monday’s RAW Show

This past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Rosemont, Illinois was notable for featuring a backstage brawl segment involving Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Cody Rhodes. Following the brawl spilling out to the parking lot, The Rock continued his attack on Rhodes slamming him multiple times into Rhodes’ private tour bus resulting in Rhodes getting busted open.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the choice of the spot for the parking lot brawl porting taking place where Rhodes’ bus was located was part of a heavy product placement sponsorship spot for the segment. Rhodes’ bus featured a large sponsorship of Wheatley Vodka, who had recently signed a sponsorship deal with WWE.

In regards to Rhodes being busted open during the brawl, Meltzer reported that this was a blade job done by Rhodes and not him getting busted open the hard way.

Meltzer reported that under the previous Vince McMahon regime, talent would have been given fines for doing blade jobs if it was not scripted or them being given an exemption for the segment’s presentation. Meltzer also reported that the most famous example of this was Dave Bautista being fined $100,000 by McMahon for a blading incident.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that The Rock’s current status within WWE means he always will get to do pretty much what he wants but the further he pushes it, the more likely some of WWE’s top stars can also get away with using profanity and harsh language for their segments.

Those spoken to reportedly also stated that WWE officials currently do not have any plans for their blood policy to turn more into something like AEW and instead blood will be used very rarely going forward. Those spoken to reportedly stated “once in a while, the exception gets pushed through” in regards to Johnson being allowed to have blood featured if he wants it for his angles similar to Brock Lesnar in the past.