AEW Blood & Guts: What are The Rules of the Match?

This week’s special edition of AEW Dynamite will see the company’s first-ever Blood & Guts match, pitting The Inner Circle against The Pinnacle in a roofed steel cage that surrounds a pair of wrestling rings. The match will begin with one man from each team entering (Sammy Guevara has already confirmed he’ll start for The Inner Circle) and after a five-minute period the first newcomer will enter the match (The Pinnacle were given the advantage last week, meaning they’ll consistently have their team members enter first). A new competitor will enter ever two minutes, and the match does not officially begin until all 10 men are in the ring. The only way for the match to end is for a wrestler to either be knocked out or submit.

Old-school fans will likely recognize these as the same rules WCW used to use for its WarGames matches. However, Chris Jericho has clarified in interviews that WarGames and Blood & Guts won’t be an exact copy.

“Our version of kind of the WarGames is why we called it Blood and Guts, it’s just not a copyright thing,” Jericho told the New York Post. “There are some differences and we wanted to kind of make it our own version of this classic match, which we obviously have a direct legacy to with Dustin and Cody [Rhodes] being with the company and obviously [president] Tony Khan is a massive fan of that era of wrestling. So, I think he didn’t want to mess with those classic rules. He grew up loving that style of WarGames.”

Jericho talked about his approach to the match while speaking with ComicBook last week.

“Blood & Guts is a little bit different,” Jericho said when comparing it to WarGames. “Even just in the way that it’s constructed. You’ll see that on Wednesday. I’ve been in a lot of first matches before. The first Elimination Chamber, the first Money in the Bank, the first Stadium Stampede, so I’m no stranger to that.

“And anytime you get a match that’s never happened before from a stipulation standpoint, it’s exciting because there’s really no rules,” he continued. “It’s a little bit of a detriment in as far as you can’t go back and watch old versions to get ideas from because there haven’t been any other versions. So I think all across the board, we’ve really built it up properly. The angle is very hot. It’s the perfect timing to have this type of match.”