Bobby Lashley Rips WWE for Releasing the New Day

A top AEW superstar and former WWE Champion is completely baffled by the releases of Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston, who had a glorious 12-year run together as The New Day.

On Saturday, WWE released Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston from their contracts. The move caught the wrestling world off guard, given their lengthy WWE tenures and status as one of the greatest tag teams in history.

During an appearance on "Good Karma Wrestling" (h/t WrestlingNews.co), AEW star Bobby Lashley critiqued WWE's decision to release Woods and Kingston, calling it "a fumble." Lashley also wondered why WWE didn't keep the two around as lifers:

"Oh man. It's one of those things where it's like, that was a fumble. That was a fumble. Bro, you retire those guys. You take those guys to the end and give them whatever they want, because they've given the business everything. I don't think there's a person in the business that says, ‘Aye man, I don't like those guys,' or, ‘Those guys treated me wrong,' or, ‘Those guys weren't good to me.' There's no one. And we saw that one time before when somebody else got released...

But it can be a great move for someone else. So at the end of the day, we might see some different mix-ups and the tag team division might become really, really, really strong and interesting in AEW, and if so, a tremendous amount of fans will go over there because they'll start kind of saying, what's going on? Isn't this business built on respect? And if you have respect for the business, you have respect for the people in the business, and these guys should have a lot of respect in the business. So what's going on?"

Lashley, a two-time WWE Champion, had his fair share of on-screen feuds with The New Day during his second tenure with the WWE. Notably, his first reign with the WWE Championship ended after Big E successfully cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on the Sept. 13, 2021, edition of Raw.

The departures of Kingston and Woods came just eight days after WWE conducted 23 roster cuts, including Apollo Crews, The Wyatt Sicks, Aleister Black, Zelina Vega, Kairi Sane and The Motor City Machine Guns.

Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods Have 90-Day Non-Compete Clauses

Standard WWE contracts carry 90-day non-compete clauses, and this is the case with Kingston and Woods. As such, they won't be eligible to sign with another promotion for another three months.

But if they want to continue wrestling as soon as possible, Woods and Kingston won't have to wait long. There should be plenty of interest in them, and nobody would be surprised if AEW moved quickly to sign them.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 1:08 PM.