In what could go down as the most shocking wrestling moment of 2026, news broke on Saturday that WWE and New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods had mutually agreed to a release, ending the beloved tag team’s decade plus run with the company. Since then, news has emerged that the release was caused by New Day refusing to re-negotiate their contracts they signed in 2025, but it’s done little to dull the surprise, as many expected Woods and Kingston would be in WWE for life.

But according to Bryan Alvarez, the biggest shock may have been that New Day wasn’t let go alongside the other major WWE departures from a week prior. On Monday’s “Wrestling Observer Radio,” Alvarez revealed he had first heard Woods and Kingston could be out the door during the first wave of cuts.

“The whole New Day thing happened long before it was announced,” Alvarez said. “Strangely enough, the first…when they did the first cuts over a week ago, I was texting back and forth with somebody about the cuts and they were like ‘I heard New Day.’ And I said ‘What?!’ And then, I asked everybody, and nobody had heard New Day. Everybody was like ‘There’s no way the New Day would be cut. It wouldn’t happen. Big E…’ all this kinds of stuff. And then a week later, the New Day are gone.”

Alvarez ominously suggested that the cuts weren’t stopping with New Day, JC Mateo and Tonga Loa, who were also let go on Saturday, as his source has suggested other wrestlers could be on the chopping block.

“There were other names that this person mentioned that are still, apparently, still there,” Alvarez said. “So suffice to say, I think there are more names that are yet to be announced. But certainly watching ‘SmackDown,’ there’s a lot of people I’m a little concerned about.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Wrestling Observer Radio” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription

WWE Champion Cody Rhodes has discussed how he pitched to Triple H about wearing an eye patch after his match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42.

Rhodes walked away from WrestleMania 42 with the title still around his waist, but he was also left with a black eye courtesy of Randy Orton. “The American Nightmare,” who has previously showcased his war wounds — most notably his torn pec — said that he wanted to turn the injury to his eye into a merchandising opportunity.

“We tried a little on the eye. I think we deemed that there was no way to cover this up, and I’ll tell you something funny. I thought I’m going to go to TV, I’m going to go to Monday Night Raw, I’m going to go to Friday Night SmackDown, I’m going to do an eye patch thing. Thought that would be cool. Wrestlers are always looking for something. Let’s get a new action figure out of it. Eye patch Cody. Triple H told me absolutely not. And there might be a shot on Unreal of me throwing that eye patch down backstage ’cause I had it. I was ready to go,” he revealed on “ESPN.”

While the injury looks gnarly and painful, Cody Rhodes is not making much of a deal out of it, saying that it is part of the job and describing it as just a “battle scar.”

“But hey, it comes with the territory. More than anything, I had no complaints. It’s just a little battle scar. That’s all,” explained Rhodes.

Rhodes was busted open by Orton, which required the champion to get three stitches to his forehead and staples to the back of his head. Although he did not suffer a concussion, reports after the show revealed that he was placed under concussion protocol following the brutal head injury.

Shortly after winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from CM Punk, Roman Reigns indicated that this would not be a reign where he disappeared for long matches, even going as far to say he’d be around all summer. At the start of last weekend, WWE made an announcement that seemed to back that up, revealing Reigns would appear on every “Raw” in June. By the time the weekend was over, however, that had changed, with Reigns being removed from those shows.

The sudden change to Reigns’ schedule immediately led to many wondering why Reigns was added to the shows only to then be taken off. In Sunday’s “Daily Update” post on F4WOnline, Dave Meltzer provided a simple explanation for all the chaos, saying that WWE had chosen to remove Reigns from the June schedule because the promotion had decided not to use him for the Night of Champions PLE in Saudi Arabia on June 27.

While that was the explanation Meltzer was given, he appeared open to the possibility that something else was at play between Reigns and WWE. He suggested that should Reigns retain the World Heavyweight Title in his upcoming match against Jacob Fatu at WWE Backlash, then the original explanation was what was happening. However, if Fatu defeats Reigns, Meltzer indicated it could mean a larger story was occurring, though he didn’t elaborate on what it could be.

Missing Night of Champions would not be out of character for Reigns, who was also absent from last year’s edition of the show, also held in Saudi Arabia. Reigns had notably been included in the advertising for this year’s show, however, with including being featured in a Night of Champions poster that began floating around social media just a week ago.

Bully Ray thinks that the recently released Nikki Cross would have been a natural opponent for Blake Monroe on the WWE main roster.

Ray, on “Busted Open,” stated that Monroe could be a babyface someday in the future, but she is a natural heel. He feels that Cross could’ve been retained and suggested a storyline involving Cross and Monroe that could’ve worked.

“You could have left her [Cross] in the character and had Blake expose her, or you could have done something completely different in which, yes, I do understand that the Wyatt Sicks were all let go, but you could have done something,” Ray began. “You could have used the being let go thing and bring it into storyline where maybe Nick Aldis has a sit down with Nikki Cross and he’s like, ‘Nikki, listen, you’ve been here for 10 years, we appreciate [it].’ Like a very real life thing where like maybe a boss says, ‘Hey, listen, you know, you got two weeks left, thank you for everything.’ And Aldis is very sad to have to let Nikki go. Nikki is very understanding and warm and says, ‘Nick, thank you very much for the opportunity here at the best time. You know, whether it was me doing the superhero, blah, blah, blah.’ But then we get that shot of Nikki Cross in the locker room by herself. She’s finally showing the emotion of just being told that she’s going to let go. And then who walks into the shot? Blake Monroe.”

In the story he wanted to tell, Monroe would enter the scene and laugh at Cross’ predicament of being released. Ray truly believes that Cross would have been the perfect opponent for Monroe on the main roster and wonders which beloved babyface could now be an ideal fit for Monroe.