Despite WWE’s usual policy against using blood in matches, Brock Lesnar slicing open Randy Orton with an elbow strike last night was reportedly planned head of time. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer addressed speculation online that Lesnar went off-script to injure Orton.

“Obviously the idea was to get hardway blood,” Meltzer reported. “The elbow was designed to cut him open, and I don’t know how badly [Orton] was hurt. Obviously he was selling and they were trying to work the idea that he was knocked out and they had to stop the match, and from what I can gather due to no one talking about anything going awry, that was probably close to what was supposed to happen, if not exactly what was supposed to happen.”

Meltzer said he has “no doubt” in his mind that the former UFC Champion was intentionally looking to cut open Orton during that segment of the match. He also spoke briefly about the elbow strike finish being somewhat reckless.

There’s still speculation that the cut may have been deeper than planned or expected. Back at Extreme Rules in 2012, Lesnar busted open Cena the hard way with planned elbows, but the cut was much smaller with less blood loss.

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