TNA International Champion Steve Maclin spoke with Sean Ross Sapp from Fightful about various topics, including his perspective on the company’s recent policy that prohibits blading and excessive blood.
Maclin said, “The past few pay-per-views, with the Dog Collar Match, you had Santana and Ali killing it at Rebellion, and then you had the Barbed Wire Massacre at Unbreakable, the same night that I won the International Championship. There’s a lot of blood recently. So I think that’s their way of scaling it back a little bit and kind of making it mean more for when it does happen again. I was perfectly fine. Referee was checking on me the entire match. Asa [Andrew] was right there to check me and docs as soon as I came to the back. I was perfectly fine, too. Then went straight to the table. EMTs were trying to start to wrap me up and stop the bleeding, and I told them to get off of me right away so I can cut my promo, please. This is money right now, so let’s use this. It doesn’t come free. So it was kind of nice. Then Carlos, Dreamer, everybody, majority of the roster, mainly my wife was right there looking at me, smiling, knowing you’re just an idiot. There’s no in-between for me. It’s just either I’m gonna do something full-heartedly and put every bit of it into it, or I’m not gonna do it at all. That’s when I tell people, like the day you know I’m hurt, is when you look at my wife and she’s actually concerned.”
TNA Wrestling instituted the policy earlier this month and put an end to heavy use of blood as well as blading following Maclin’s Dog Collar Match against Eric Young for his International Championship on last week’s iMPACT, making it the last match of its kind for the foreseeable future. Maclin would end up retaining his International Championship against Young.
You can check out Maclin’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
