A significant picture of WWE’s current approach to talent contracts is emerging in the wake of The New Day’s departure, with PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reporting that a heavily pushed WWE star accepted a 50% pay cut just one day before Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods were moved to the company’s alumni section.
Johnson revealed the detail while discussing the broader direction of WWE under TKO’s ownership, framing the timing of the pay cut report and New Day’s departure as striking.
“This past Friday, the day before Kingston and Woods were moved to the Alumni section of the WWE website without even a ‘Hey, thanks for all you did for this company’ publicly, PWInsider.com was told of a pretty majorly pushed talent who was asked to take a 50% pay cut, and allegedly did. I’m not naming the talent because I have no way, yet, to confirm this was the case, but the timing of that claim and what happened the very next day was very, very interesting, to say the least.”
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select added further context on X, noting that multiple WWE talents were approached about taking pay cuts, though he did not specify which names were involved.
The New Day’s departure had already been reported to stem, in part, from TKO’s latest contract offer to the team. Kingston and Woods were moved to the alumni section of WWE’s website without any public acknowledgment from the company, a decision that drew criticism in its own right, given their combined tenure and the titles they held throughout their careers.
Tonga Loa and JC Mateo were also reported to have departed WWE on the same day, though the nature of those exits has not been confirmed.