Backstage Details On WWE Reportedly Wanting To Retain Xavier Woods

As previously reported, The New Day’s Xavier Woods is exiting WWE. Woods and Kofi Kingston mutually agreed to part ways with WWE after they were asked to restructure their contracts for lower payouts and declined to do so. However, per Bryan Alvarez on a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Live (via WrestlingNews.co), WWE wants to retain Woods to continue doing video game-related work for WWE.

According to Alvarez, WWE wants Woods to continue working with WWE under a similar deal as Tyler Breeze, where he would still be paid by WWE to do work for WWE’s gaming side. Alvarez stated, “I’ve heard this from a lot of people this weekend, that I do believe that WWE is trying to retain Woods with, as it was referred to repeatedly, the Tyler Breeze deal, which is basically he gets paid money to do stuff for the video game. And I don’t know if he will accept that offer.”

It’s unknown if Woods would accept an offer by WWE to still work on the gaming and content creation side of things. Alvarez continued on Woods, “I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but he might. So it is not a foregone conclusion that both of The New Day are going to AEW. It’s likely going to happen, I would say. But there are things being done where WWE is trying to retain him for other things.”

Although Breeze was released as a wrestler from WWE in 2021, he later did work for WWE as part of the WWE-owned UpUpDownDown channel, frequently appearing on streams with Woods for MyGM Mode for the WWE 2K game series.

Will Xavier Woods Stay With WWE’s Gaming Side?

WWE’s gaming-themed UpUpDownDown channel started in 2015. It’s since garnered over 2.44 million subscribers. Xavier Woods has long been the face of the channel for years. However, it hasn’t been updated with a new video in about two weeks.

As noted, Xavier Woods also issued a statement this week on his WWE exit, which you can read HERE.