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Kofi Kingston says WWE wanted New Day to take more than a 50% pay cut

Aaron Rift

As seen during the 2026 AEW All In PPV event, former WWE stars Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods debuted as The New Level with the names Kofi and “Awesome” Austin Creed. Following their appearance, Kofi and Creed spoke with Ariel Helwani about leaving WWE for AEW. Here is an excerpt…

Helwani: “It was reported that you were asked to take a 50% pay cut and that they kind of wanted to wind things down and you would do community stuff in addition to some appearances. Is that all accurate?”

Kofi: “I don’t know exactly what’s out there. I will say it was more than 50%. It was more. The compensation is a big part of it [why they left] for sure. The bigger part of it is being able to like go out and live your dream in the way that you want to live it out and be appreciated for it. We took it all into consideration, and we knew that this was the only path to take. And it was scary at times with the uncertainty and everything. But sometimes you just gotta go through, you know what I’m saying? You gotta face the fear, and you have to keep on going and believe in yourself. And no matter what— we feel like we did it on our own terms, right?”

Kofi also stated the following…

“Sometimes when people do these interviews, there’s all this, like, angst and, like, bitterness. I don’t want to come across as that… I just want to say, like, I’m super grateful for the time that we had there. You know what I mean? Like, living out my childhood dream. It would have never been possible if it wasn’t for WWE. We had so many great moments as a team, myself individually.”

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