On May 2nd 2026, wrestling fans were greeted with the news of more post-Wrestlemania WWE releases; one of the first batches to really have the new ownership stink on it. The last batch on April 24th was headlined by the incomparable Kairi Sane, married couple Aleister Black and Zelina Vega, and the entirety of the Wyatt Sicks faction. But that Saturday morning, a different kind of bomb was dropped when it was reported that The New Day, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, had made the decision to leave the company.
The shock stems from several things, one being that The New Day as a whole, along with their third member Big E, are absolutely front-runners in the discussions for greatest tag team and stable of all time and have been a mainstay on WWE programming since their formation in 2014. Another is the fact that Kofi Kingston has been a part of WWE for twenty uninterrupted years, dating back to getting signed to development territory Deep South Wrestling in 2006. With the recent retirement of John Cena, the only active wrestling talents to be in the company longer than Kofi are Randy Orton and The Miz.
One other huge reason is that all three members of The New Day are absolutely beloved figures not just by fans around the world, but by every single one of their peers. For what feels like the longest time, New Day have been some of the current generation’s locker room leaders and community uniters, no matter the company banner. Reportedly, it was apparently a “mutual” decision between talent and TKO that lead to their dismissal. Other reports have come out saying it was because TKO wanted the duo (and several others) to take a drastic pay cut just one year into a five year deal. Guess the only thing left to really say is:
Thank god for The New Day. And thank god they’re free.
A trio of Black men being unapologetically goofy/nerdy as all get out, supporting one another through every trial, building and displaying an unbreakable bond of friendship, never jealous of one another, zero toxicity, and dedicating themselves to be true believers of both the “power of positivity” and “when one of us wins, all of us win” were always too good for WWE.
They were formed by their own choice and pitching to management, only to be given the horrible gimmick of being saccharine and enthusiastically positive Gospel church cheerleaders. This was a gimmick they knew was DOA – no one wanted unfounded, inauthentic, corporate ordered “joy” in the mid-2010s. So they made the decision to give management exactly what they asked for and be as obnoxiously positive as humanly possible and got over as some of the biggest heels of the age, second only to the choking oppression of heel management faction The Authority. Except unlike The Authority, they were entertaining, put people over, and you actually wanted to see them.
From there, their obnoxiousness only grew in depth and “stuff” – record setting tag team title reigns, trombones, unicorn horns, time machines, hip gyrations, Booty O’s breakfast cereal (They make sure you ain’t booty!), the simple question of “who,” and openly indulging and celebrating in nerd culture and inviting us in. Along the way, they developed a parallel “lore” with their gaming channel, UpUpDownDown, which was one of the greatest ways to see WWE Superstars as real people AND see loads of underutilized talent.
While most of their act has been the personification of fun, their lasting impact has been, and always will be, crafting one of the most different and important displays of not just what men and healthy masculinity can be, but what that looks like for Black and minority men.
New Day didn’t debut as a unit until I was a full-grown adult, but as a Black and multiracial guy myself, seeing three Black guys just being what they wanted to be and not forced into tropes or boxes, especially those traditionally placed on Black performers, was and has been one of the most wonderful things in wrestling this millennium. Hell, across all media.
What makes it even better is that was one of their aims of the group, or at the very least what one of Woods’ goals for the group was – to show that Black men can be any kind of man they want to be and not just the more commonly seen “angry, athletic, or comic relief” kind of molds. They were all of those things and more.
They are heroes that accomplished so much with the little they were given, strategized and picked their spots, put in that WORK, and always did it with one another and others. In essence, they represented the antitheses of wrestlers of the past: minority men who were never insecure of their spot, brought others up with them, promoted healthy locker room hobbies, and touted that in this era, there was a room for everyone, not just a few hand-selected favorites.
Appropriately, they are shining beacons of the power of friendship – if it’s lonely at the top, you did it wrong. They were presented with pitches numerous times from management about ways for them to break up so they could have singles runs and every man always refused, only going through group division when it was clear Big E would not return to the ring. Their line in the sand was always the love they had for each other and how important it was that people saw that. They have always known their worth to themselves, their peers, and their community.
And they achieved all this undisputed good in one of the most infamously restrictive environments in their craft. And now they’re free.
Thank god it’s a New Day, yes it is.
