AEW All In was the most appropriate place for the New Level's debut. Austin Creed and Kofi's first night in AEW ended with them standing inside Wembley Stadium — with more than 40,000 fans in attendance — as champions. It was an incredible payoff for betting on themselves after WWE failed to bargain with them.
Months earlier, Creed and Kofi (formerly The New Day's Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston) were asked to take significant pay cuts to remain with WWE, the company they'd called home for a combined 36 years. The request caught them off guard, particularly after everything they'd accomplished there. Between them were countless tag team titles, singles accolades, major merchandise sales and a WrestleMania appearance one year earlier where they walked out with the world tag team titles.
The phone call was difficult, but not the decision to leave.
"I think it was easy for sure," Kofi told CBS Sports. "It was a little scary. It was a little scary because of the uncertainty. For the past two decades, I always knew where I was working. Financially, I knew what I had to do to make plans and prioritize my family's well-being. We all knew the tangibles. All of a sudden, having that uncertainty of what's next was very, very daunting."
The New Level, @AustinCreedWins & @TrueKofi, have arrived as @SwerveConfident’s partners in the Trios Roulette Royale!Watch #AEWAllIn London LIVE on HBO Max PPV pic.twitter.com/gnJeA7P5bL
Creed and Kofi were reportedly one year into new five-year contracts when WWE approached them about renegotiating. According to the pair, the proposed deal represented a pay cut of more than 50%. Money mattered, especially after spending so much of their adult lives with the security WWE provided. But the other half of the proposal, reduced roles that New Day chose not to expand on, bothered them much more. Ironically, the pitch made to justify the reduced salary is what drove them out of the company.
"I knew that we weren't done," Kofi said. "We didn't have to be done over here. It's amazing because there's so much talent here to work with. That was what was really exciting.
"So there was a lot of uncertainty, but it was all positive because… whatever route that we chose, it was going to be amazing. The result was going to be amazing. I'm so glad that all of this worked out with AEW now because the possibilities are endless."
They weren't given much explanation for why WWE's valuation of them had changed so drastically. Kofi didn't spend much time asking. He has a philosophy he regularly preaches to his children: don't dwell on what you don't want, figure out what you do.
"Bring a solution, right?" Kofi said. "Like I tell my kids all the time, 'Don't tell me what you don't want to eat. Don't tell me that you don't want to eat this. Tell me what you want to eat. Bring something to the table. Let's get to the solution.'
"So that's really our mentality, figuring out what is next, because what's next is coming regardless of the reason. We were never given that explanation, but we weren't really looking for it. We didn't really care to find out. We didn't cry. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day."
For Creed, there was something familiar about being told his value didn't match his expectations. He'd heard all the reasons why he couldn't cut it as a professional wrestler long before setting WWE tag team records and becoming King of the Ring.
"What we want for our careers is definitely the more important part of that," Creed told CBS Sports. "Because there's a reason that we got into wrestling.
"I was told I wasn't big enough to be a wrestler. I was told so many things about my abilities: 'You're not right for this.' And then fighting against it because I knew that I was; I knew that I belonged. I knew that what I had to offer was good for professional wrestling."
Two decades into his wrestling career, that chip hasn't gone away. Creed carried that same mentality through his WWE run. It's why The New Day overcame a shaky debut, presented as stereotypical black gospel babyfaces with a unique gimmick that turned them into a generational team. It's also why they enjoyed such longevity in their old stomping grounds. Starting over carries some of the same appeal it did when nobody knew the name Xavier Woods.
