Xavier Woods' Health Reportedly Affecting The New Day's Booking

At NXT Deadline on December 10, The New Day's Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods triumphed over Pretty Deadly to become the new "NXT" Tag Team Champions. Since then, however, Woods has only competed in two matches — a successful tag title defense against Brooks Jensen and Josh Briggs in "NXT," as well as a victory over Imperium in a six-man tag team match alongside Madcap Moss at a house show on December 27. That's because according to PWInsider, he's dealing with injuries and thus, hasn't been fully cleared to return to the ring just yet.

That said, hopes and expectations are that Woods will be back before the month is up, with PWI reporting "the expectation internally is that he should be good to go by Royal Rumble, if not sooner." Last week Friday on "SmackDown," Kingston lost to Santos Escobar in a singles match with Woods in his corner. That dynamic continued over the weekend, as PWI noted that he "worked in Kofi Kingston's corner at last night's live event in Huntsville, Alabama" which saw Kingston pick up a win over Pretty Deadly's Kit Wilson. Meanwhile, recent weeks on "SmackDown" have seen the New Day team with both Braun Strowman and Ricochet in separate six-man tag matches. 

Alongside Kingston, Woods is just the third-ever Tag Team Triple Crown Champion in WWE history. However, despite that and his King of the Ring triumph in 2021, injuries have sidelined him on more than one occasion over the past couple of years, as an Achilles injury suffered in October 2019 kept him out of action for almost a full year.