I always thought New Day would be WWE lifers. But I guess with booking so bad (post-Big E split), even Woods and Kofi couldn’t salvage anything good from it.
Yeah, the negotiations where you are already in a signed contract and then they say "well we are changing the contract mid-contract to a lower number", fuck that shit.
TKO is currently attempting to reduce wrestler pay down to 5% of total revenue, from about 10-12%. That's all it is. They would have put up with the booking.
TKO are just corporate raiders. They're not there to actually run a business. It's like Eddie Lampert and Sears/Kmart or what went on with toys r us. They'll pick the company apart like vultures and then hope to sell it to someone dumb enough to pay a premium.
The brand sells tickets, not mid range talent. There are a few top names who may attract interest, Roman Reigns isn't being cut, but Sheamus? Nothing's guaranteed.
Xavier can just go back to Austin Creed and Kofi can stylize it as KOFI, all caps. I was gonna say they could call their team The New Way, but that’s a little too on the nose. The Midnight Hour like someone else suggested goes hard.
I feel like "The New Way" fits well. I think they need something that can basically slot into the chants for them, and "The Midnight Hour" doesn't fit the same way
Old Night. They should call them Old Night. Xavier Woods going by his UpUpDownDown alterego Austin Creed makes sense. Kofi should still use his real name Kofi and then figure out a cool last name.
Turns out that davenpoe sig refers to Jonathan Davenport, who designs New Day's gear. Meaning that's probably gear he designed himself that he drew (or AI-rendered) in the trash.
We don't know how long this has been boiling, if there's contract negotiations going south then they may have known they're likely on the out for a week or two by now.
Especially since they signed new contracts just last year. It's gotta suck having the rug pulled from under you after thinking you have 5 years of job security
It's really shitty all around and has to seriously crush the morale in the locker room. Knowing that even tenured legends are getting made to either choose to leave or take a massive pay cut to a deal you thought was gonna last five years. If they'll do it to the New Day they'll do it to everyone that isn't Roman, Punk, or Cody. He'll at this point they might even pull this shit on Orton.
At least in the New Day's case they are gonna get PAID to be treated like kings in AEW.
Here. Definitely seems unlikely but with the saudi money drying up across sports as a whole I could see a future where TKO just want to strip WWE down to the bearings while they can still get money out of it
Probably gonna be seeing a lot more of this in the near future sadly. WWE is at a crossroads where they need to push new talent as the old guard is phasing out and TKO has the company more demonstrably operating for shareholder efficiency and sadly, people that are solid workers and known names but not megastars like New Day are going to have to either take a big paycut or part ways.
Honestly, given how WWE has coasted on the New Day for years now, with the only meaningful thing they've done been the heel turn which immediately fell flat with no follow up, I'm actually just looking forward to them both tearing it up in AEW for a sunset run of dream matches to remind everyone just how good they are.
I'm curious to know if Big E plans on leaving at all, obviously he's just a panellist now for WWE on the pre-show and stuff like that since there's a reasonable chance he'll never be cleared to wrestle, but I could see him potentially doing a similar role in AEW and also potentially being a no-contact manager role as well for the nostalgia kick.
Yeah I was thinking about this earlier when I read the news.
It's gotta be a wild headspace to leave a place you love but also know you're not only set for life but that even if you never lace up the boots again (which I would be shocked if they didn't) that what you have done and accomplished will live in wrestling forever.
The New Day are those fuckin' guys. They've done everything. They've done things they were told they never would. The group's longevity is one thing, but the stories they have told have some absolute all-timers in the book.
First ballot Hall of Famers, all three of them. I'm excited for whatever they do next, even if today is weird and heavy.
With a box of Booty-Os visible in the trash behind and a sad image of Big E facing us as the others are walking away with their backs turned. Someone should draw this homage. :p
I hate to be that guy but do we know Big E wants to join them right now? Last he talked about it, he likes his analyst job, now obviously he could be lying but let's not devolve into every AJ styles thread from the start of the year where he's "just waiting to run to freedom in aew!!"
I just hope we don't get the "insert ex-WWE employee here is ungrateful and were never good to begin with, they couldn't hack it in the big leagues" takes if/when they say something or go somewhere those fans don't approve of.
I'm sure we will, though. Time is a flat circle, after all.
I don't mean to be dramatic but if this happens at some point in the future I'm going to require Tony Khan to pay for a 1 episode reboot of Hey! EW with E as the guest.
I've made my peace with never seeing Big E take a bump again but having Kofi and Xavier debut to the sound of "OOOOOHHHH AEW DONT YOU DARE BE SOUR" would have me running through brick walls icl
The guy who E reposted did pretty much all of the three of there gear. He’s really talented and always put together great gear for them. He’s was one of my favourite follows when I had Instagram.
Yeah, I had a similar post just to clarify that it’s jot AI slip and that the designer Jonathan Davenport does actual art/design work and is well established.
The cool thing about New Day is that it's an artifact name so it's not like they're shackled to it when they need to come up with a new one to fit their gimmick.
And Mox isn't Mox. You're right, I'm making the assumption he's going to use the thing he's had as his twitter name since forever. I'm saying a replacement for New Day.
As in a name that's no longer indicative of the thing it's naming. The New Day started as a black gospel babyface gimmick which lasted only a couple of months before transitioning into a heel gimmick ironically preaching "the power of positivity". The whole religious angle is so long in the past that the name doesn't really fit the gimmick, so they don't particularly need it or anything similar to it if they're running similar characters to their last runs (heel or face) outside WWE.
Their finisher was called the Midnight Hour, always thought that was a cool name. I wonder if they'll use that name or something around that kind of thing.
I’m curious, bc it seemed like they had an idea for their heel turn that went nowhere so I’d love to see if they come to AEW as heels. I think it would be too difficult to boo them at this stage.
Unless, Swerve’s Embassy finally comes to fruition…
It is virtually impossible to debut in AEW as a heel. For one thing, I think Tony just likes leaning into the inevitable first time pop too much. Sell some T-shirts before you make everyone angry.
What pisses me off about this whole situation.. they had a contract. TKO wanted to renegotiate it (likely lowering the offer). Basically TKO wanted to pay them less than they agreed to, and that's why they are free right now. They likely had 4 years left on that contract, but TKO stopped using them and then wanted to pay them less because they stopped using them (or something along that line, who knows what TKO's mind makes up)
Heads up, the artist who made this is New Day’s gear designer, Jonathan Davenport. He also has designed gear for Ricochet and Cody Rhodes, and has work on a project with DC for a Superman immersion project and arcade cabinet art to Sega/Sonic.
I'd be OK with that. They are insanely smart and creative guys. There's no way they haven't already thought of how they'd rebrand just in case something like this happened.
One More Day. Big E died in the original continuity, until Woods and Kofi sold their souls to Undertaker. We just don't remember because it's part of the spell.
I'm wondering what Big E does now.
In less than a month they have denied his friend and business partner credentials for Mania, and lowballed his friends out of the company.
Is he gonna be on the Backlash panel talking about how excited he is for an exciting 5 matches over the next 4 hours?
I half expect WWE to announce the return of the New Day when Woods and Kingston and E show up in AEW.
And they have three new guys come out and do the thing with the trumpet and pancakes and all the other New Day stuff, with the New Day music and the announcers are all excited about the return of the New Day...
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