Following the controversy last week during the Chris Jericho match versus Nick Gage on AEW Dynamite, Dominos has seemingly gone through with their decision to withdraw their sponsorship. However, one company’s loss is another’s gain as Pabst Blue Ribbon stepped in to claim the vacant spot.
While this is great news for AEW Dynamite, the advert itself is strange as while it is a wrestling-based advert, it doesn’t feature an AEW wrestler. Rather, Matt Cardona and his fiancée Chelsea Green. Between them, both have made sporadic appearances for AEW, but are more known for working with ROH, IMPACT, NWA and as of last month, GCW.
Pabst Blue Ribbon released a statement talking about how Matt Cardona embodied everything Pabst Stands for. This may be true; however, the unanswered question is why this was aired during an episode of AEW Dynamite.
“We are proud to support independent wrestling, and debut Pabst Blue Ribbon’s first-ever cable advert with the Michael Jordan of wrestling figure collecting and GCW world champion, Matt Cardona. Matt’s embodiment of having fun and betting on yourself is what independent wrestling and Pabst Blue Ribbon are all about. We work directly with creatives, artists, and athletes like Matt, which allows us to move quickly, like producing this commercial in-house to air within 4 days. It’s fast and furious and fun. #MajorPBR forever.”
AEW Dynamite Opened the Forbidden Door for Commercial Crossovers
In the day of brand and company crossovers, is an advert such as this a mistake or is it just a clever extension of the open-door policy of modern wrestling? AEW Dynamite is a place where anybody, from any promotion, could seemingly appear. Yet, despite this, the decision to run an advert featuring a wrestler from another company still seems a little strange.
Perhaps it was rushed, a last-minute change. It could be the original plans for the Pabst Advert were for alternate placement. After all, the goal of the ad is to make money for the beer and not AEW Dynamite. Either way, it would appear that even without Dominos, AEW will not struggle to find other sponsors.
