Austin Creed has finally addressed why he and Kofi Kingston walked away from WWE after more than a decade to join AEW.
Speaking at the post-show press conference following Sunday’s AEW All In: London at Wembley Stadium, Creed said he doesn’t view their departure as good or bad, but rather as a professional relationship that simply ran its course.
“I always think about this like personalities and relationships. Different people have different personalities. Those personalities can grow. Sometimes they grow together. Sometimes they grow apart. There’s no bad. There’s no good. You are excited about the opportunities you had, the things that you learned, but that relationship was no longer one that we felt we needed to be in. To be able to look across the pond and see what was happening here, especially with tag team wrestling because yes, we’re professional wrestlers. But since I was a child, I wanted to be part of a tag team because I loved the fact that I can be there to protect my brother, and he can protect me.
So to be able to come to a place that admires that, that wants to cultivate that with legendary tag teams, with young tag teams so when those legendary ones are gone, the young ones are fulfilling the prophecy and they’re keeping everything going. That’s what’s important to us. To be able to come here and do that is why we’re here.”
Creed, formerly known as Xavier Woods, and Kingston departed WWE in early May. Both were moved to the Alumni section of WWE’s website and left the company after an attempted contract restructuring.
All In marked their in-ring return. Rebranded as The New Level, Creed and Kingston were revealed as Swerve Strickland’s surprise partners in the Trios Roulette Royale and captured the AEW World Trios Championship.
AEW confirmed after the match that both men are officially signed. Their first title defense is already set for Wednesday’s Dynamite, where The New Level and Strickland will take on The Rascalz.