Last year’s Blood & Guts, ironically contested between Jericho and the Jericho Appreciation Society and a babyface Blackpool Combat Club with Eddie Kingston by their side, was a somewhat flat overall match with a finish that we loved with our entire heart. We couldn’t tell you basically any of the spots that led up to it, but we know every detail of the finish, because it found a really creative way to grow certain characters, specifically Kingston. This year’s Blood & Guts had much more to recommend it during the larger body of the match, but it was the finish that fell a bit flat.

There were a few things that threw Blood & Guts off for us. The problem with 5 vs. 5, especially on TV, is you can’t showcase everyone; some people are going to be doing more interesting things than others. And while we expected that going in, we weren’t expecting one of the people who didn’t really get featured to be Kota Ibushi, who didn’t totally look himself in his AEW debut (by which we mean he looked like someone who hadn’t wrestled in four months). Omega was heavily involved (and he wore Ibushi’s colors, which was sweet) but Ibushi’s only real moment was when he first entered the match, punching every member of the BCC on his way to saving Kenny from Jon Moxley and his insane bed of nails. Aside from that, he spent a lot of the match in the background, didn’t even interact with Omega that much, and wasn’t really involved in the finish. As people for whom Ibushi’s participation was obviously a major draw, that was disappointing.

As for the finish itself, we can’t say it wasn’t creative, but it was also very weird. After PAC, the BCC’s last minute Danielson replacement, got accidentally hit with a move by Claudio Castagnoli and then got into a shoving match with his alleged teammates, he ended up walking out of the match, even using bolt cutters to open the cage door. So that’s … different. When he left, Don Callis, who had been on commentary, hastily ordered his client Konosuke Takeshita, to leave the ring as well. That left the Golden Elite with a 5-3 advantage, which they quickly used to beat up and choke the life out of Wheeler Yuta until Moxley supposedly surrendered the match (we say supposedly because the camera didn’t catch it).

So … that’s it? The great story of the Elite and the Blackpool Combat Club, and it ends with the heels briefly fighting from beneath before being brutally overpowered and executed by the babyfaces? Really? That’s just an incredibly anti-climactic ending; we’re starting to hope this isn’t the end of the feud so they can come up with something better.