Published: May 5, 2026 by Liam | Last Updated: May 5, 2026 by Liam
Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. Immersed in wrestling for 18 years, he has over 11,000 published articles in addition to leading and overseeing WrestleTalk.com's coverage.
WWE
WWE is reportedly attempting to sign Xavier Woods of New Day to a new type of contract after the news of his departure from the company.
It has emerged over the past few days that Woods and Kofi Kingston had rejected a pay cut and instead decided to exit WWE.
In addition to their illustrious in-ring careers, Woods in particular also has another major WWE project with UpUpDownDown, his gaming YouTube channel with almost 2.5 million subscribers.
Through the YouTube channel, Woods does a lot of promotion for the WWE 2K video games and is a big part of those launches.
On the latest Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez reported that WWE is making attempts to sign Woods to a new kind of deal similar to that of Tyler Breeze, which is a contract pretty much specifically for UpUpDownDown.
He said:
“I’ve heard this from a lot, a lot, a lot of people this weekend, that I do believe that WWE is trying 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.
“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 the New Day are going to AEW. It’s likely going to happen I would say, but there are things being done where WWE is trying to retain him for other things.”
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Breeze has made a few appearances WWE TV under his current UpUpDownDown-centered contract, including a match against Ethan Page in NXT this past October.
He does wrestle on the indies as well, so Woods may be able to do that even if he signs this type of deal, though there would seemingly be a good chance it includes a clause that he can’t work for certain promotions which would include AEW.
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