Hall Of Famer Defends WWE For The New Day Leaving The Company
The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods officially left WWE on May 2 after they refused to accept pay cuts on their contracts.
Following TKO Group Holdings’ request to restructure their deals, both of them chose to leave rather than accept lower pay, effectively leaving millions on the table over the next four years.
Speaking on a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, veteran Eric Bischoff shared his thoughts on The New Day’s departure. He said he wasn’t surprised to see Kingston and Woods leave WWE, as he felt it was a long time coming. Bischoff stated that Kingston and Woods had been with WWE for a long time and were loyal, but loyalty does not guarantee a job forever.
“Nope. For all the reasons you just stated. I agree with everything that you just said, which is probably the reason why their time was essentially up. It had played itself out. The wrestling community audience can virtue signal their asses off. Oh my gosh, they’ve been with the company forever. They were so loyal. And I’m not discounting any of that, by the way, because all of it is true, but none of it guarantees you a job for life. What the hell?”
Eric Bischoff Explains Why The New Day’s WWE Departure Wasn’t Surprising
He added that a tag team requires paying two performers instead of one, resulting in double the labor costs for a single tag team role. Bischoff further said that under TKO Group Holdings, decisions are increasingly driven by business efficiency, with WWE being treated more like a corporate asset due to cost-cutting and structural changes. He expects more decisions in the future to be based on profitability rather than tradition or fan sentiment.
“So if you’re going to commit to a tag team now, you’re committing to twice the labor costs for talent just to have a tag team division. From a mathematical point of view, it doesn’t work. Now, you can argue creatively that there’s something special about tag teams that still satisfies a certain niche in the audience. I’ll buy it. I probably not only buy it, would support that, agree with it, but is it a big enough part of the audience to justify it? What happens?
You know, if you just run the math, what happens if it goes away, and maybe 3% of the audience, 1% of the audience, whatever the percentage is, it’ll be minimal because, ah, they don’t have tag team wrestling anymore. I’m not going to watch. I don’t think 1% would do that, but whatever, let’s say 1%, is it worth it? Probably to eliminate tag teams, because financially, it does not make sense. And the more TKO looks at the WWE as a property, the more you’re going to see those kinds of changes.”
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