No more bad blood between WWE and Kentucky. ‘Smackdown!’ is back.

Blood was one of the things that came between Kentucky and World Wrestling Entertainment.

No more. For the first time in more than six years, WWE is bringing a televised event to Lexington: “Smackdown” is coming to town Nov. 28. That’s after the pay-per-view “Survivor Series” on Nov. 19, so expect a lot of score-settling, recriminations and general ill humor — a potentially great show, with Nakamura, Jinder Mahal and A.J. Styles expected to appear.

But back to the blood — bad blood, so to speak.

Kentucky regulations used to say that a wrestling show had to be stopped if a performer accidentally bleeds. In WWE competition, blood is as essential as beer is to football tailgating. It ups the emotional ante of the match, making the victim more noble and the aggressor more villainous. It gives the ring announcer the chance to bellow, “He’s busted wide open!,” one of the great lines of professional wrestling.

However, in WWE, just between you and me and Carl Hall, the director of arena management at Lexington’s Rupp Arena, “If you see blood, 99.99 percent of the time it’s theatrics.”

Kentucky was one of the states that WWE considered a thorn in the side of its theatrics. WWE, which brought million of dollars into Kentucky with live shows for television and “house shows” for smaller audiences, didn’t want to drop dollars in a state that stopped its narrative when blood appeared. Both Rupp Arena and Louisville’s Yum Center were affected.

In late 2016, Kentucky repealed various regulations on the combat sport and professional wrestling industries that had kept WWE and mixed martial arts organization Ultimate Fighting Championship out of the state. Blood will no longer stop a match if the contestant has submitted a blood test to prove that he or she doesn’t have major diseases.

The combat sports regulations were among the hundreds of administrative regulations repealed or targeted for repeal under Gov. Matt Bevin’s red tape reduction initiative.

“They (the regulations) are just modified to be more consistent across state lines with other facilities,” Hall said, including those in Ohio and Indiana, Hall said.

What that means for Kentucky is that the state gets more of that WWE multiplier money — hotel rooms, restaurant meals and shopping trips that those who come to town for WWE might need for their excursion.

Hall said the Nov. 28 Smackdown televised event will be the second WWE visit to Lexington since the regulations were revised. WWE brought a “house show” — a non-televised program — to Rupp on July 16. Hall said he’s trying to get two more WWE events booked into Rupp for 2018.

Lexington has always been a strong market for WWE events, Hall said, and the expensive tickets and VIP platinum packages worth hundreds of dollars show how much fans are willing to spend.

“If you came to a WWE event and went on the floor, there are many doctors and lawyers sitting on the floor in the first few rows,” he said. “Your typical WWE fan — there is no such thing anymore.”

This story was originally published November 24, 2017 at 12:03 PM with the headline "No more bad blood between WWE and Kentucky. ‘Smackdown!’ is back.."