Takeaways From Blood & Guts

Full Gear might be near, but first came a pit stop in Greensboro, North Carolina, for AEW Dynamite: Blood & Guts, featuring both a women’s and a men’s match under the same brutal name.

Blood & Guts is traditionally AEW’s gnarliest match of the year. It pits two teams against each other inside a double-ring steel cage, with the only way to win being through surrender or submission.

This year marked the first-ever women’s Blood & Guts match, adding a fresh wrinkle to one of AEW’s most violent traditions. While there wasn’t much of a story leading into it, the match still served as a great showcase for a deep and talented division in a prime spot.

Elsewhere on the show, Adam Page faced Powerhouse Hobbs in a Falls Count Anywhere match, a brutal warmup before Hangman’s AEW World Championship rematch with Samoa Joe at Full Gear.

So what went down on this special episode of Dynamite? Let’s take a look.

The Women Dazzle Despite Missing Story

There was a blank canvas for the first-ever women’s Blood & Guts match, and boy did they paint it red. It became a crimson-colored showcase almost from the moment the opening competitors, Skye Blue and Willow Nightingale, started the match. That visual of Blue with a blood-soaked face is one that’ll probably live on in future highlight packages because it was so striking.

The action delivered from start to finish. Kris Statlander took an absolutely gnarly drop on a bed of nails from Marina Shafir, which, yes, that’s just rough. Shafir, though, came out of this looking like a star. She already has the look and presence, but she wrestled like a top role player who knew exactly how to use her strengths. There was also a bag of tacks that ripped open when Jamie Hayter brought them to the ring. It might have been for a spot, but it added to the chaos since the floor became genuinely dangerous.

Then there was the creativity of Mercedes Moné using all her championship belts as weapons. Commentary even pointed out how each belt’s design could hurt in a different way, which was such a nice touch. The belts were even used in the finish, which made it all feel cohesive. Just really fun stuff.

Her throws down the steps looked a little off, though. It seemed like a few of the women took some rough falls, and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone ended up a little banged up afterward.

Harley Cameron’s payoff with her Harley puppet was great too, revealing brass knuckles hidden inside.

In the end, the match came down to Mina Shirakawa getting annihilated by Megan Bayne, who might’ve been the standout of the match with that Drew McIntyre-style Claymore, and by Shafir, while Toni Storm, her partner and friend, was forced to watch. They beat Shirakawa so badly that Storm had no choice but to surrender.

The finish didn’t get a huge reaction, maybe because it’s hard to capture emotion inside a massive cage, but it still landed and should tie into the Women’s World Tag Team Championship Tournament.

This was a fantastic start for the women’s Blood & Guts concept. They set the bar high even without a built-in story and absolutely earned the right to main event the next one.

Hangman, Hobbs Deliver Fun Interlude

In between the Blood & Guts matches, Adam Page and Powerhouse Hobbs put on a fun Falls Count Anywhere match that took the action all around the arena. It served as a way to heat up the tension between the two sides before the Cowboy Champion rematches Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship at Full Gear, and to bridge the gap between the two intense cage matches.

While Page took a rough bump from a slam by Hobbs onto the steel steps, the latter man definitely got the worst of it after taking a brutal back body drop off the announcer’s table, landing hard on his backside on the floor. He worked through the rest of the match, but that looked awful.

Hobbs also took a fall from the stands onto an exploding electric table, which led to the pinfall. Just an absolutely wild match that gave Page an extra win before Full Gear.

Post-match was all about setting up that rematch with Joe at Full Gear, as he ran out with Katsuyori Shibata to attack Page and called for the Blood & Guts cage to be lowered. Eddie Kingston and Hook made the save, and Page used the moment to challenge Joe to make it a Steel Cage match at Full Gear for the title.

Kyle O’Reilly Steals The Show

The men’s match missed a little of the oomph that the women’s had, but it still delivered as a fun second Blood & Guts match to close out a great show.

To get it out of the way, the Mark Briscoe angle didn’t quite land. He was said to have been taken out by the Don Callis Family before entering the match third, but the payoff fell flat. He came out anyway and looked fine, which made the whole setup feel unnecessary. Everyone expected his return, and with Kenny Omega already announced for next week, there wasn’t anyone believable to fill the spot. Honestly, the match would’ve worked just as well without that angle.

That aside, this was a star-making performance for Kyle O’Reilly. He’s been around forever and already built a great career, even with time missed due to injury, but this was a statement night. The submission battle in the middle of the ring, surrounded by dried blood and broken glass, showed just how good he really is. He threw everything he had at Jon Moxley and ended up making him tap out after being carved up by a fork for a solid two minutes.

It also continued the story AEW’s been telling with Moxley. When he’s cornered and has no one left to back him up, he breaks. He’s tapped out to Darby Allin and Adam Page, and now again here. It’s strong character work for someone who carries himself like an unstoppable badass but folds when he’s pushed to the edge.

Gabe Kidd made his return as the Death Riders’ enforcer, setting up Darby Allin being thrown through a flaming table by Pac. Allin’s pants even caught fire in the process, which fits perfectly with his reputation for taking insane risks and still looking like one of AEW’s true faces.

Another creative moment came when Orange Cassidy had his hands stapled while they were still in his pockets.

The match closed on a high note with O’Reilly and Moxley, and it’ll be interesting to see how AEW builds from here. They clearly have something with O’Reilly, who should come out of this red hot. AEW has struggled to capitalize on momentum before, but between him, Megan Bayne, and Marina Shafir, there’s plenty of potential to build new stars and refresh the main event picture.