Yes, There Was a Bottle of Prime At WrestleMania
by Rudy Sanchez on 04/04/2023 | 2 Minute Read
Two years ago, YouTuber and probable crypto scammer Logan Paul made his debut on professional wrestling’s biggest stage, WWE, eventually landing a multi-event contract in 2022. Unfortunately for Paul, his contract ended with his appearance this Sunday at WWE’s marquee event, WrestleMania.
But with Logan Paul being Logan Paul, he wouldn’t let his possible pro wrestling swan song end without making some social media content and plugging his beverage venture Prime.
Serenaded by 70,000 booing fans in SoFi Stadium, Paul was accompanied by none other than his business partner and fellow influencer KSI, secretly dressed as a bottle of Prime for his match against Seth Rollins. Thankfully, for Prime AND packaging nerds, the bottle featured prominently in the fight. After unmasking (un-Priming?) hiself, KSI became part of the action, as he tried to record a TikTok of Paul getting ready to jump from the top rope onto Rollins. However, at the very last second, Rollins pulled a distracted KSI onto the table, making him the recipient of Paul’s frog splash.
Product placement is nothing new at WWE pay-per-view events, much to the chagrin of fans that have to sit through terrible concepts indifferently performed by WWE talent like the infamous “zombie lumberjack match” on-air promotion for the Netflix movie Army of the Dead.
But it’s rare for the on-air product placement to so prominently feature packaging, with Pizza Hut’s Triple Treat box being given a lot of screentime at Survivor Series in 2021, as a recent example. However, Paul’s move to promote Prime is probably the first we’ve seen an influencer-turned-pro-wrestler leverage a major WWE event to shill a product.
It’s easy to hate Logan Paul, as there are plenty of reasons. Still, his promotion of Prime at WrestleMania 39 was a savvy move for the controversial influencer. Not only is pro wrestling popular among the young males that drive Prime’s sales (and eBay resellers), but it’s also a massively viewed event. According to WWE, WrestleMania generated over 500 million views, and 11 million hours of video were consumed over the event’s two days. For the most-hyped beverage of the past year, it's yet another stage with plenty of eyeballs on it that's ripe for exploiting (er, influencing).
However, don’t let that novelty distract you from the fact that in nineteen ninety-eight, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and he plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.