Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods are now officially known as Kofi and Austin Creed after making their AEW debuts at last weekend’s All In: London pay-per-view. As a tag team, they’ve also rebranded themselves into The New Level, with The New Day name in their rearview mirror.
During an appearance with “The Ariel Helwani Show,” Kofi explained how a simple thought made from the treadmill eventually spawned their AEW team name and the theme song attached to it, “New Level” by A$AP Ferg and Future.
“Austin had the vision, and this is probably a month-and-a-half into the unemployment phase. He’s like, ‘Hey, next time we come out, I’ve been listening to A$AP Ferg. I want to come out to New Level,'” Kofi recalled. “Sometimes you throw things out in the universe that are just so far off that it’s like, ‘Ah, that would be great, man,’ but you don’t actually think that it’s going to happen … we’re going back and forth with names. We have a couple that are okay. Then Austin, he had brought up ‘New Level’ again. He’s like, ‘I’m listening to New Level right now.’ I go, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Is that the name? Is that the one?’ And then Austin’s wife was in the background like, ‘Yeah, I like it.’ I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and then you start visualizing it. We knew at that point that was it.”
Kofi and Creed later unveiled their new names, entrance tune, and alliance with former AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland before an electric crowd in London. Together, the three went on to capture the AEW World Trios Championships after outlasting a competitive field in the first-ever Trios Roulette Royale. The New Level’s “AEW Dynamite” debut proved equally successful as they and Strickland defended the titles against The Rascalz. Like All In, “New Level” could then be heard blaring throughout the venue speakers.
A Complicated Game of Telephone
According to Kofi, AEW licensed the “New Level” song after a complicated game of telephone that included WWE’s Big E, Peter Rosenberg, and A$AP Ferg’s manager.
“With regard to how we got the actual music is crazy because when we were starting to negotiate the contracts, Austin says, ‘Ask them if we can get New Level as an entrance song.’ They’re like ‘Oh yeah, Tony [Khan] said he thinks he can do that, he can make that work.’ We’re like ‘What? Okay’ So now, it’s real,” Kofi said. “Now we have to figure out how do we make this happen. I think they contacted Sony, but they were having trouble getting in touch with them, so we put in some calls. As a matter of fact, we called E because he is Mr. Hip-Hop and Mr. Rap, so we figured he might have a connection.”
Big E didn’t know A$AP Ferg personally. He did, however, point his former New Day tag team partners to ex-WWE writer Kazeem “Kaz” Famuyide and current WWE broadcaster Peter Rosenberg, whose involvement proved pivotal to landing the music agreement.
Fortunately for Kofi and Creed, Rosenberg’s had a pre-existing connection to Ferg, which allowed him to directly contact both Ferg and his manager. About 20 minutes later, Rosenberg then called the pair back to deliver the good news, just in time for their first AEW appearance at All In.
“He’s like ‘Yup, they’re down. They’re going to talk to the right people.’ He linked up Ferg’s manager with AEW,” Kofi said. “Then we made it happen even less than 24 hours before we debuted.”
Kofi and Creed departed from WWE earlier this year after turning down a suggested pay cut that would have totaled more that 50%. Big E remains with WWE as an on-screen personality.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “The Ariel Helwani Show” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
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