Backstage Update on TKO Asking WWE Talents To Take Pay Cuts

As noted before, New Day’s Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston departed from WWE this past Saturday following a mutual decision from both sides over New Day not accepting a new restructured deal offer to stay in the company. WWE and their parent company TKO Group recently have been asking their talents to take a pay cut with one “pretty majorly pushed” name talent believed to have taken around a 50% pay cut in order to remain in the company.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources with knowledge of the situation stated stated that the number of wrestlers who were asked to take a pay cut is less than six people. Those same sources reportedly also stated that those wrestlers would have been cut had they not accepted it.

In regards to who were the people who accepted pay cuts, Meltzer reported that they were not “high end” talent and instead were people that WWE creative had little interest for plans going forward. Meltzer also reported that the idea being was those talents could remain under contract with WWE while their in-ring aspect of their wrestling career would be phased down.

Meltzer also reported that his sources confirmed that one major name talent had agreed to a 50% pay cut due to them being among the wrestlers on WWE’s roster who wouldn’t be a fit in AEW or earn as much as they currently do elsewhere and as a result, they do not have much leverage.

In regards to New Day’s Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston’s departures from WWE, Meltzer reported that both were on the list of those without significant future creative plans and essentially were put in the position where they were going to be cut. TKO reportedly offered Woods and Kingston a new restructured deal for less money to stay in WWE with the idea they would wind down their in-ring careers and finish their current contract doing some in-ring work and working in a promotional capacity. Meltzer reported that this new restructured offer would have been for the remainder of New Day’s contracts with WWE that still had around four years remaining.