Dax Harwood Admits Extreme Blood & Guts Finish ‘Kind Of Sucked’

AEW has held two Blood & Guts matches in its history. The first of these matches took place during the company’s “pandemic era” and was held at Daily’s Place, which served as the promotion’s primary venue during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first match had a controversial ending, and now it seems Dax Harwood admitted that the ending was not good at all.

Back in 2021, The Inner Circle faced off against The Pinnacle in the first-ever ‘Blood & Guts’ match, and it was certainly a very brutal affair, nothing short of an all-out war.

When all was said and done, The Pinnacle emerged victorious. However, the reception to the match was very mixed as many fans didn’t like the ending to the match which saw Chris Jericho falling from the cage.

WWE Superstars such as Shotzi Blackheart mocked Chris Jericho’s bump off the cage. During the match, MJF pushed Jericho off the top of the cage, causing him to fall through the stage below.

While the moment was intended to be a dramatic one, many fans were taken out of the moment due to the camera angle, which clearly showed that there was cardboard and padding in place to protect Jericho’s fall. This led to criticism of the finish and a discussion about whether it diminished the overall impact of the match.

While speaking on the match on his FTR podcast, Dax Harwood talked about the aforementioned match and its ending. The former Pinnacle member admitted that the ending sucked.

“Yeah, that finish the ending how it went down, did kind of suck. It wasn’t the fault of any of the performers. I just think that, again, this was during the pandemic era, so we were all working without a net on how to shoot things. Daily’s Place kind of made it a little difficult to shoot. But that’s the cards we were dealt. First Blood and Guts match ever in AEW. And again, like I said, working on live TV without a net.

“So the way it was shot is the reason that the fans soured on it. And again, I don’t blame the cameraman or the directors, the producers, nobody knew. It was just those are the cards that we were dealt. So when I say that, it was the way it was shot. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that we were all still in the process of learning how to deal with this pandemic-era style of wrestling.

“I thought the idea for the finish was great. I thought that the execution going into it was done well. It’s just the way it was shot probably could have been thought through a little bit more considering the small confines of the Daily’s Place.”

Chris Jericho even called out the WWE Superstars who mocked the ending. The second Blood and Guts match that took place last year ended up being a much better match, and fans were glad about that fact.