Pro Wrestlers Make The Company, Not The Other Way Around

In the wake of WrestleMania 42, WWE continued its annual tradition: layoffs. Many cuts blindsided the locker room, but the real shock wasn’t who got released—it was who walked away. The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, two Black tag-team legends, chose to leave on their own terms. 

Even on fans’ worst days, The New Day were the tag team everyone agreed on as the redeeming quality of the company. And how could they not be? They were a part of a fun‑loving trio who got so popular as heels that the company had no choice but to crown them its most decorated tag team ever. And when Kingston finally won the big one against Daniel Bryan after being in the company for 17 years, becoming the first African‑born WWE Champion and ushering in KofiMania, there wasn’t a dry eye in sight at WrestleMania 35.

Despite fans’ long‑running fantasies of seeing them mix it up with AEW’s Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, it always felt like a pipe dream; The New Day were WWE lifers, the kind of talent you assumed would retire as a trio in the WWE years from now. Which is why the news that they’d mutually agreed to part ways with the company was so shocking. 

Mass releases aren’t new to the company. Wrestlers who hadn’t been on TV for a while, because of an injury or because they were on their way out anyway, could be on the chopping block. In 2021, when Vince McMahon was still steering the ship, the WWE became a place where established wrestlers who had been performing on TV week after week, and even newly-signed wrestlers, had their wings clipped before they got any wind under them as often as the seasons changed.

While layoffs have gone the way of the chorus to Tupac’s “Changes,” what makes The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods leaving WWE of their own accord so monumental was that they made a mutual decision with WWE to do so after they were reportedly asked to “restructure their contracts.” 

According to PWInsider, a majority of WWE superstars were reportedly asked to take a 50 percent pay cut and did. Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer (who’s basically the Jason Schreier of wrestling news), corroborated the report with the clarification that the worker who was asked to take a pay cut wasn’t “a tippy top person.”

“There have been recent raises and there have been people asked to take cuts,” Meltzer said. “I think it’s very clear who they see as the top people and none of them have been asked to take a cut.”

Fightful went on to report that several WWE superstars were reportedly given only two days to decide whether to accept a pay cut to remain in the company. 

While none of the above absolutely confirms whether Woods and Kingston were among the wrestlers asked to take 50 percent pay cuts, social media posts from the duo—especially Kingston—basically say all we need to know. 

"Do not ever compromise or accept less than your due when it comes to your worth."

Naturally, WWE’s layoffs sting a bit more when you see Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson—a TKO board member making an asinine amount of money—waltzing through the Met Gala in a $3 million timepiece. His sporting a watch worth more than many of the independent contractors whose labor fuels his passive income is emblematic of how skewed the company’s priorities are. We smell what The Rock is cooking, and it’s blissful ignorance. 

Granted, skewed priorities from a company whose monopolization of wrestling territories made its three-letter acronym synonymous with the sport are structural, not situational. And its acquisition by the Saudi-backed TKO group has only emboldened its worst instincts, pushing it further toward the ethos of its sister company, UFC. 

UFC is a company that has spent more than a decade engineering its ecosystem so that no single fighter could ever get big enough to challenge the machine. The brand is invincible, and the talent—no matter how loud Bruce Buffer bellows their name—is kept small. God forbid a fighter speak out against UFC “Freedom” 250 taking place at the White House. We’ve gotta think of Trump’s poor cankles doing the walk out every other PPV with Dana White by having it at his home away from home.

Up until recently, sudden releases and months-long non-compete clauses served as the icing on the cake of WWE’s chaotic, shortsighted decision-making process. But its recent moves—dipping into AI (on screen and off), cozying up to the Trump administration, charging gluttonous ticket prices, and remaining conspicuously silent during Black History Month—have only accelerated its slide into UFC-style debauchery. 

And with the Saudi bubble beginning to wobble across industries, the audacity of WWE approaching Woods and Kingston to “restructure their contracts”—contracts they had only just extended for five more years in 2025—and asking them to take a reported 50‑percent pay cut is beyond insulting.

This is exactly why Kingston and Woods’ departure hits different. They know their worth in an industry built on convincing performers to haggle their price down and be grateful for the chance to be here at all. Wrestlers make the company, not the other way around. 

Suddenly, Saudi (Money Is Drying Up)

“The fear is that if the Saudis have come in and propped up a number of these organizations and sports and pastimes with their money, and now that money is in danger of disappearing, it’s basically cutting the legs off the table”

AftermathNathan Grayson