WWE reportedly offered New Level a pay cut of more than 50% before their AEW exit

[Joker16]

Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, wrestling together as The New Level, revealed on September 1st that WWE asked them to accept a pay cut of more than 50 percent before they ultimately left the company and signed with AEW. The pair discussed the situation in detail, describing how WWE approached the pay cut request and how it factored into their eventual decision to depart for a rival promotion after years with WWE

According to the duo, they officially signed their AEW contracts less than 24 hours before AEW All In, having only spoken with AEW in the weeks leading up to the pay per view, suggesting a fast moving negotiation once they decided to explore options outside WWE. They also said they didn't receive a proper thank you from WWE higher-ups on their way out despite their history with the company, a detail that's added to the broader conversation around how WWE handles talent departures

This lands amid a broader pattern of high profile WWE talent moving to AEW recently, and comes the same week Tyler Breeze confirmed he's also no longer under WWE contract. Curious what people think this specific pay cut detail reveals about WWE's current approach to compensation for established tag team talent compared to what rival promotions are apparently willing to offer instead

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[Memory Jaguar]

A pay cut of more than 50 percent for two established, over talents is a genuinely steep ask, that's not a modest renegotiation, that's basically WWE signaling it didn't see them as priority talent anymore

[NealBinnom-Williams]

Signing with AEW less than 24 hours before All In shows how quickly these decisions can actually come together once a wrestler decides they're genuinely willing to leave, not some long drawn out courtship at all

[James90]

No proper thank you after years of service is such a small detail but it genuinely shapes how these departures get remembered publicly, companies that handle exits poorly tend to keep generating exactly this kind of story

[Cougar]

Curious what WWE's actual reasoning was for that specific pay cut request, was it genuinely about budget, declining use on television, or something else entirely that just hasn't been made public yet

[Ryan98]

Worth remembering we're only hearing one side of the negotiation here, there's usually more context behind pay decisions like this that doesn't always come out in a talent's own retelling after the fact

[Cheugy]

This fits a pretty clear recent pattern of AEW picking up established WWE names, worth watching whether that trend actually shifts the competitive balance between the two promotions or just generates headlines without changing much

[ControlPlane Priya]

Tag team specific pay structures in WWE have always seemed a bit murkier than singles star contracts, curious whether this pay cut request reflects a broader devaluation of tag team wrestling within the company specifically