Has the WNBA become a brutal league, or are we just paying more attention now?

From bloody noses to body-check complaints, the league's physicality is under the microscope. But players and historians say the toughness isn't new - we're just finally watching

Last July, Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson took a shot to the face from Seattle's Nneka Ogwumike that left her nose gushing. Wilson later said she'd never seen so much of her own blood. It didn't affect her game too much though: she finished with 24 points and 20 rebounds, telling reporters of the jab, I think it made me great."

When Caitlin Clark entered the league in the same season and was almost immediately swatted around like a fruit fly by veterans with years of experience and plenty of size on her, she didn't complain (though many of her fans sure did). Clark came back this season bigger and better, delivering her own message to the veterans who knocked her around as a rookie.