Expect AEW to make a play for New Day, the former multi-time WWE tag team champions who just recently parted ways with the company over financial differences. Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston were reportedly asked to take significant pay cuts to stay with the company, but neither was willing, choosing instead to trust their own value and take a chance that another company would appreciate it.
AEW makes sense.
Related: New Day Among Several New Departures from WWE
Several analysts and wrestlers have weighed in on the recent split, many calling it a mistake by WWE. Fightful Select released an extensive report revealing the scale of TKO’s payroll-reduction mandate. That led to several WWE releases, and in other instances, performers accepted pay cuts. New Day chose not to and that led to an unexpected move to WWE’s alumni section.
WWE didn’t want the tag team to leave, but they were not willing to pay the millions of dollars it would have required to keep them on their current deals. Now, there is speculation that WWE is apparently trying to keep Xavier Woods with the “Tyler Breeze” video game deal, As per Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live:
“I’ve heard this from a lot of people this weekend, that I do believe that WWE is trying to retain Woods with, as it was referred to repeatedly, the Tyler Breeze deal, which is basically he gets paid money to do stuff for the video game. And I don’t know if he will accept that offer. I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but he might. So it is not a foregone conclusion that both of New Day are going to AEW.”
AEW might be the better fit.
Speaking on Good Karma Wrestling, former WWE Champion, now turned AEW star Bobby Lashley suggested New Day would be welcomed in AEW. “Oh man. It’s one of those things where it’s like, that was a fumble. That was a fumble. Bro, you retire those guys. You take those guys to the end and give them whatever they want, because they’ve given the business everything. I don’t think there’s a person in the business that says, ‘Aye man, I don’t like those guys,’ or, ‘Those guys treated me wrong,’ or, ‘Those guys weren’t good to me.’ There’s no one. And we saw that one time before when somebody else got released.”
Meanwhile, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T noted:
“I’m a realist, man. You don’t want to leave no money on the table. You don’t want to leave no money on the table. And out there right now is money floating around on the table. I remember last time when I said guys like Edge going over, Ric Flair, those guys, I said AEW is a good place to retire. But people don’t talk about what else I’d say. It’s a good place to start, like a Ricky Saints, like Ethan Page. It’s a great place to start, too. So I just wanted to put that out there. It is a great place to end your career. Damn, it is a great place to end your career. You can get paid just as much money on your way out as you’re making at the end of your career. Is that not a good deal?”
Does this mean that New Day will show up in AEW? It’s not a guarantee. That said, there’s every reason for Tony Khan to want to bring both men in. They’d be major players in the AEW tag team division and be back in a prominent role, something they didn’t have in WWE.
Next: “The Beast”, Brock Lesnar Retires from WWE At WrestleMania 42
