https://www.f4wonline.com/aew-news/mary ... ine-310481

By Josh Nason | @joshnason | May 7, 2020 4:36 pm



While news broke Wednesday that AEW was fined $10,000 by the Maryland State Athletic Commission for blood in a match between Jon Moxley and Kenny Omega, the state confirmed the fine Thursday.

Per state regulations, intentional blood isn't allowed in pro wrestling matches. Moxley and Omega faced off in an "unsanctioned" match to close out the company's Full Gear pay-per-view in Balitmore last November.

AEW has 30 days to pay the fine and could have issues getting regulated there in the future if other incidents occur.

Other prohibited activities per commission rules include "slamming an opponent into a ring post", "striking an opponent with a foreign object", "pulling hair", and "deliberately leaving the ring enclosure during a contest."

In their ruling, the commission said the following:

"The Commission acknowledges that while AEW took precautions to reduce the potential for injury to both Mr. Good and Mr. Smith by using materials, in certain instances, to simulate injury and merely give the appearance of bleeding, blood was introduced into the ring in other instances during this professional wrestling match through the deliberate and repeated actions of the two referenced wrestlers as scripted by AEW."

"Smith" is Tyson Smith, aka Omega, and "Good" is Jon Good, aka Moxley.

This should go in the Funny Wrestling Topic, except that it's true.

I can understand banning blood for health reasons, but does anyone actually think Moxley and Omega used fake blood at any point during this match? F*ck no. They either bladed or got opened up hard-way, and claiming that they used fake blood at some point during the match throws out what little credibility these commissions have. And they obviously must believe this, because this is obviously a cash-grab by the state (like most things most state commissions do related to pro wrestling), and just saying "we told you not to bleed but you bled" is a much stronger case when you don't make yourselves look like idiots by claiming that they used fake blood sometimes!

The more I think about this the angrier I get with how pathetic this is. The next logical question is "if this is a cash grab then why didn't they fine AEW for all of the other sh*t they did in this match?" And the question after that is "why haven't they fined WWE for things?" And the answer is that they're going after AEW because they think they can bully them because they're new, and they know that if they go after AEW for all of the bullsh*t in these laws then AEW and WWE both will just not run there again, and so even if AEW did pay whatever ridiculous amount they can get them for the first time, the loss of potential revenue from never being able to tax whatever their percentage is from WWE and AEW again (plus whatever other fees they might have like wrestler's licenses) will far outweighs whatever they could get AEW to pay this one time... but not going after AEW for the "full amount" just exposes that this is just a cash-grab rather than any sort of actual attempt to protect the wrestlers' health from these things the idiot commission supposedly thinks are dangerous like throwing someone into a ringpost.