Borderlands 4 can't even win in its own ads, as WWE has cosplaying wrestlers take the L in their own championship match
It was to harness a brutal side of themselves, as "Borderlands is an incredibly violent game," definitely not next-level product placement

WWE did a promotional crossover with Borderlands 4, featuring the Street Profits in Psycho gear. And even in its own ad, Borderlands took an L.
Since WWE entered the TKO era (resulting from its merger with the UFC), it has been going all-in on advertising. The ring mats are covered in ads, the outside barriers had ads for Nestle ice cream during its biggest match of the year (the main event of Wrestlemania 41 between John Cena and Cody Rhodes), and even the table weapons are now adorned with Slim Jim ads. It's the peak of tackiness, frankly. However, it sometimes extends to the wrestlers themselves, as seen in cosplay, which we witnessed last night at WWE's Clash in Paris event.
During the second match of the night, which saw the Street Profits take on WWE Tag Team Champions The Wyatt Sicks. The challengers emerged with a titantron video featuring "Street Profits" written in the game's font, accompanied by images from the Borderlands 4 cover art and the series logo.
The duo then came out themselves with Psycho masks and admittedly cool gear with a cel-shaded style, with commentator Wade Barret saying "well Borderlands is an incredibly violent game, so maybe that is the side of the Street Profits that will be coming out to play this evening," which is the most solid cover you can have for "we're using our wrestlers as ad space too."

And while it would maybe make sense for The Wyatt Sicks to come out adorned in Destiny 2 gear, they just arrived as their usual spooky selves (in what was an electric entrance I'd recommend checking out thanks to the fantastic crowd in Paris, to give it credit).
And after about 13 minutes of back and forth The Street Profits couldn't harness the violence of Borderlands enough clearly, as the Profits' Montez Ford was pinned by the Wyatt's Joe Gacy, meaning that Gearbox's advertisement would go on to take the L. At the very least the winning team did cheat via outside interference, so Borderlands 4 at least didn't job out clean. Randy Pitchford hasn't tweeted about it yet, so presumably he's not too cut up about the loss.
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Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.
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