PBR To Air Wrestling Ad During AEW Dynamite After Domino's Debacle, PBR Embraces Indies

By Marc Middleton

The Pabst Blue Ribbon brand continues to capitalize off the recent AEW – Domino's Pizza debacle.

As noted, last week's AEW Dynamite main event saw Chris Jericho defeat Deathmatch wrestler Nick Gage in a No DQ bout. There was a spot during the match where Gage used a pizza cutter on Jericho's head, right before a Domino's Pizza commercial aired picture-in-picture, showing a pizza being cut with a slicer. The next day Domio's disavowed the spot, having no prior knowledge of what was going to air. It was also reported that they might remove all ads from AEW programming. You can click here for the original report, along with the statement from Domino's.

Pabst Blue Ribbon took to Twitter after the statement from Domino's and sided with AEW, and even offered to double down on support for AEW by taking any available advertising spots. You can click here for the original report on PBR's initial response to the pizza cutter situation.

In an update, PBR has a new commercial that stars Impact Wrestling star and current GCW World Champion Matt Cardona, who made two appearances for AEW after being released from WWE last year. The ad also features Chelsea Green, Brian Myers, Dylan Postl (fka Hornswoggle), Mark Sterling, and Joe Shoes.

The PBR commercial with Cardona and friends is set to air on cable TV. It was confirmed to us today by a PBR PR rep that the commercial will air during tonight's Homecoming edition of AEW on TNT. PBR originally shot and self-produced the spot in June, and turned it around in time to get it on tonight's show.

PBR has sponsored Cardona's podcast that he hosts with Myers, The Major Wrestling Figure Podcast, since April, and also recently launched a #MajorPBR merchandise line with Cardona.

PBR Brand Manager Corey Smale said the company is proud to support indie wrestling. He also revealed that the commercial was produced in-house to air within 4 days.

"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," Smale said. "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."

PBR tweeted on the commercial today and wrote, "First commercial in forever and it's wrestling"

They also made several more wrestling-related tweets and indicated that AEW boss Tony Khan had made contact.

"TK in the DM's. Worked ourselves into a shoot!," they wrote.

PBR made another interesting tweet on Khan. They posted a screenshot showing how Khan liked their "First commercial in forever..." tweet.

The caption to that tweet reads like this: '"Please avoid implying, suggesting, or expressly stating (i) Pabst is a sponsor/partner of AEW on social media and (ii) Pabst has signed sponsor/partner agreements with AEW and/or WarnerMedia. These are misrepresentations of the business transaction for available ad inventory.'"

Furthermore, PBR responded to a tweet asking if the commercial will air during Dynamite tonight. They simply responded with the following quote, "'A media buy during a program, does not make the advertiser a sponsor or partner of a program.'"

Another tweet apparently encouraged fans to take PBR signs to tonight's Dynamite show, or other pro wrestling events fans might attend.

PBR, who indicated that they are working on something with longtime supporter and indie veteran Arik Cannon, said in another tweet that this all is "a brand embracing DIY as a way of life and independent wrestling as a way of living. That's all this has been about."

For those who missed it, Gage recently apologized for offending Domino's, which you can see here. You can also read Jon Moxley's words for Domino's.

Stay tuned for more on PBR and pro wrestling. You can see the new commercial with Cardona below, along with several new tweets from PBR, and related wrestler tweets they have re-tweeted:

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