Selecting the right photo to illustrate a story can be important. We’ve seen plenty of cases where an otherwise-good story was undermined by a photo of a different person entirely that was misidentified for some reason. A further funny evolution of this comes from YouTube personality/entrepreneur/celebrity boxer/WWE wrestler Logan Paul, who posted a photo Monday announcing an extension with that wrestling promotion:
Contract renewed @WWE pic.twitter.com/qFHGCMMBMo
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) April 10, 2023
As many noted, though, that photo of Paul with WWE chief content officer Paul Michael Levesque (“Triple H”) appears to be the exact same one Paul previously posted with Levesque and his then-co-CEO Stephanie McMahon on his first signing with WWE last summer, just with the color of Paul’s jacket and his energy drink changed, and with McMahon cropped out:
https://twitter.com/taylajmiller/status/1645441180862128129
Here’s that initial tweet from Paul last June:
Just signed with the @WWE pic.twitter.com/7lYdxIKivF
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) June 30, 2022
As others noted, beyond the cropping out of McMahon, it’s quite funny that the bottle of Paul’s Prime sports drink changes to the yellow-colored version, but still has “Blue Raspberry” on the label:
Prime bottle still says “blue raspberry.” What a novice lol
— little robot from star war (@r28915194) April 10, 2023
This led to quite a bit of Twitter commentary:
And the reflection from the table 😬😬
— Darren (@ItsMiroDay) April 10, 2023
She was my favorite addition in the Star Wars Special Editions.
— “Thicc Bockwinkel” Peter Melnick (@PeterMelnick) April 10, 2023
Update: Paul has offered some level of dispute of this, though:
Some people are saying I photoshopped my new contract from the first time I signed with the WWE.
That is untrue.
As you can see, my jacket is a different color, Stephanie McMahon is no where to be found, and Prime is a different flavor pic.twitter.com/0A4VxopNNi
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) April 10, 2023
Our original post follows below:
It’s understandable why Paul didn’t necessarily fly in for a new contract signing photoshoot. He has lots going on in his various careers. But this didn’t really need a photo. And if it was thought that it did for engagement purposes, it would seem to make more sense to use a photo of him actually in WWE competition, rather than altering an old photo of him signing his original contract.
This isn’t the first case of photoshopped images in sports media, or of photo misidentifications. But tweeting this particular photoshopped image feels like an odd move. However, much of pro wrestling is not as it appears (as always comes up in discussions of covering it), so a photoshopped photo isn’t their biggest controversy. And at least this one didn’t involve Auschwitz.
[Logan Paul on Twitter]
