Tony Khan ordered AEW talent not to discuss an infamous segment that upset Domino’s Pizza.
During their feud in the summer of 2021, MJF made Chris Jericho undergo a series of tests called the “Labors of Jericho” before he agreeing to face the former AEW Champion and then-leader of the Inner Circle.
The first labor involved an easy defeat of MJF’s fellow Pinnacle member Shawn Spears, but Maxwell Jacob Friedman had something more dastardly up his sleeve for test number two. Chris Jericho was made to face deathmatch wrestler Nick Gage, who is most famous for his work in GCW. One of Nick Gage’s weapons of choice is a pizza cutter, and sure enough, their match at Fyter Fest saw both Jericho’s arm and head carved with the dastardly instrument.
While fans of Gage knew to expect this level of violence from the King of the Deathmatch, one of AEW’s advertising partners was less than pleased. While Gage was using the pizza cutter on Jericho during a picture-in-picture advertising break, an ad played for Domino’s Pizza, showing employees using pizza cutters in a far more traditional manner. The pizza chain wasn’t happy and released a statement saying they were reviewing their advertising policy in the wake of the incident.
Nick Gage spoke about the incident during a recent appearance on Rewind Recap Relive, first saying that he enjoyed his AEW appearance and that he was familiar with many members of the locker room.
“I pretty much knew everybody in the locker room man, I must have wrestled almost all them guys in the locker room. Man, everybody was cool as hell in that locker room. You know, I get respect everywhere I go, just ’cause of who I am, but no one was a d*ck, nobody was an a**hole, everybody was cool.”
Gage went on to say that Jericho was very cool to him, and he also revealed that Bryan Danielson was the agent for their match. He also noted that Tony Khan thanked him for the match, and legendary commentator Jim Ross was also complimentary of him.
When he was asked about Dominos’ reaction to the pizza cutter incident, Nick Gage laughed about it being a coincidence and revealed that Tony Khan told the locker room not to say anything publicly about the pizza chain.
“Tony Khan was like, ‘Man, don’t you guys say anything about Domino’s or anything like that!’ And I was like, ‘I’m not corny like that, man.’ I don’t really care about that sh*t, that sh*t was funny, you know? I’m carving Jericho up, making him a bloody mess and here comes the Domino’s Pizza commercial.”
Despite the wishes of the AEW President, Nick Gage did humorously tweet about the incident a few days later. His appearance for AEW was a one-time deal, and he has not appeared in the company again.
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