Yesterday, Xavier Woods competed against Kenny Omega at E32018. They played against each other in Street Fighter V. The showdown was even promoted by WWE.com.
Today, Woods posted a heartfelt thank you to fans who have been following his YouTube channel and supported his gaming efforts.
“I started my YouTube channel ‘UpUpDownDown’ in order to have a creative outlet that was my own where I had the ability to create something that was mine. For the past three years all of you have watched the videos, laughed with me, cried with me, made fun of me, and most importantly just had a good time with me.
Everyday my amazing team works hard to bring you the most ridiculous and fun content that we possibly can. Yesterday we did something that no one thought we could ever do. We pulled off the “impossible” and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone involved. Yes, the rivalry between Kenny and myself was our story. But the larger picture was to shine a spotlight on the fighting game community. This group of guys and girls live this life all year long. They are an amazing group of people and we wanted to show the world what they are missing if they aren’t keeping an eye on them.
Yesterday was an example of how entertaining esports can be so find your local tournaments scene and support them. Thank you to everyone who has come along on this wild ride!”
He also posted this photo of himself with Kenny Omega from E3, where the New Day squared off against The Elite in a Street Fighter V battle.
While Xavier Woods’ week has been filled with video games, he’ll be back wrestling this weekend. The New Day still has not revealed which of their members will be competing in the Money in the Bank ladder match on Sunday. All three will likely be in Chicago for the event, however.
While E3 2018 showcased the next top games in the upcoming months, one WWE Superstar was on a mission.
E3 Fortnite Celebrity Tournament
Xavier Woods, member of The New Day and host of UpUpDownDown, leaped into battle for the first-ever Fortnite Pro-Am Tournament before leaving with $10,000 for Connor’s Cure. The 50-team Pro-Am was held in Los Angeles during the 2018 E3 convention and featured some of the world’s best Fortnite players teaming with celebrities of television, film, music, and sports alike for their share of $3 million prize pool for charity.
Woods was competing against the likes of Chandler Riggs of “The Walking Dead,” UFC champions Demetrious Johnson and Tyron Woodley, rapper Lil Yachty, NBA players Paul George and Kenneth Faried and many more.
Woods teamed with streamer CDNThe3rd, and the two outlasted more than half the competitors, coming in 24th place out of 50 teams. They each left with $10,000 for the charity of their choice, with Woods playing for Connor’s Cure, which supports research in the battle against pediatric cancer.
Woods has been busy battling competitors at E3 and more about it can be read here.
An inter-promotional trios match-up has been announced recently. While all 6 of the participants are wrestlers, however, this match will be conducted on a gaming console.
Over the weekend, Xavier Woods and new IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Kenny Omega, got into a war of words. Woods eventually announced he was bringing in Kofi Kingston and Big E to E32018 as his partners. Just last night, the Young Bucks revealed that they will be Omega’s partners at the event.
E32018 is large gaming expo taking place in Los Angeles this week.
New Day vs the Elite will be contested via Street Fighter V. The event will be live streamed at Twitch.tv/CapcomFighters on June 14th, 2018 at 1PM local time.
New Day vs the Elite
Woods let Omega know he was bringing the New Day with him to E3 this week:
“I appreciate the sentiments on my historic win,” Omega responded to Woods on Twitter. “But for you to assume that I wouldn’t find any friends for #E3 is about as silly as your mid-card comedy act partners. Get ready for your first main event, boys.”
WWE.com reported on the matchup. They even referred to New Day’s challengers as IWGP Champions. Omega’s “Best Bout Machine” nickname is referenced in the article as well.
The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega won heavyweight gold in NJPW over the weekend. Omega defeated Kazuchika Okada to finally win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Dominion 2018. The Young Bucks won the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships from Evil and Sanada as well. It’s the first time the Bucks have won heavyweight gold in NJPW.
WWE just made a very interesting move. SmackDown Live star Xavier Woods is scheduled to take on New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) star Kenny Omega in the Street Fighter video game at the upcoming E3 conference.
In an article published Thursday, WWE hyped Woods and Omega’s upcoming clash, referring to Omega by name as a “independent wrestling star.” Here’s an excerpt:
“Xavier Woods and independent wrestling star Kenny Omega have been engaging in a heated war of words on social media over who’s better at Street Fighter. The two rivals will converge at the Capcom booth during the E3 video game conference next Thursday to settle the score in a battle for supremacy.
“The two have engaged in arcade fighting showdowns in the past, but the heat turned up once again on their rivalry when “The Cleaner” posted a video to Twitter, showing off his Street Fighter skills while calling out The New Day’s resident trombonist”
Make of it what you will, but it’s certainly interesting to see WWE mention Omega’s name in one of their articles.
NJPW star Kenny Omega appears as a character named Cody in the live action trailer for Capcom’s newest trailer showcasing Cody’s moveset in the game Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition.
You can check out the trailer below:
Cody is a character from the Final Fight series which has been now introduced over to Street Fighter since Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Super Street Fighter IV. The character, who is the mayor of Metro City will be available as a DLC (downloadable content) addon.
Kenny Omega plays Cody in the live action part of the trailer who receives a taunting phone call from a voice very familiar…
Sean Ross Sapp Of Fightful reports the producers behind the matches of this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW. Here is the list below:
Sarah Stock (formerly of TNA) – Fatal 4-Way match: Liv Morgan vs. Sarah Logan vs. Natalya vs. Dana Brooke
Dean Malenko – No Way Jose vs. Baron Corbin
D-Von Dudley – Breezango vs. The B Team
Jamie Noble – Dolph Ziggler vs. Chad Gable & Finn Balor vs Braun Strowman
Arn Anderson – Elias vs. Bobby Roode
Tyson Kidd & Michael Hayes – Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens & Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal
Xavier Woods and Kenny Omega Exchange Words On Twitter
A fan recently asked Kenny Omega on Twitter which member of The New Day he’d have a better match with – Xavier Woods or Kofi Kingston? Omega turned the question into a video game question, which led to a brief exchange between himself and Woods:
You have an amateur comedian writing your tweets now? Look, if you want it so bad in @StreetFighter I'll be glad to play you to end all of this. In the words of Aaron Burr, "If you've got something to say name a time and place face to face" https://t.co/2WKWnrd6UK
Being forced to live in a house with @KennyOmegamanX? I wouldn't wish such a horrible situation on my worst enemy. He prolly drinks from the carton, smacks loudly when he eats, & talks to much during movies. https://t.co/NuhbL2NIkf
As we’ve previously reported, New Day member Xavier Woods suffered an injury when he got a hole in his tongue from his match with Cesaro on SmackDown Live earlier this week. Woods took to Instagram to update fans on his status, revealing he had one hole in his tongue and two partial holes:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BikCQC7B-09/
NXT Star Gets New Finisher (Video)
NXT recently held tapings for their next several weeks of programming at Full Sail University on May 9th and 10th. In one of those matches, Bianca Belair defeated Aliyah using a brand new finisher.
A fan posted a video from the tapings featuring the new finisher on Twitter, which you can check out here:
There was one WWE Superstar who unfortunately suffered a minor injury this week.
As seen on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live in Baltimore, MD at the Royal Farms Arena on the USA Network, former WWE Tag Team Champion Xavier Woods took on former RAW Tag Team Champion Cesaro in a singles match.
During the match, Cesaro connected with a devastating uppercut to Woods that had him bleeding from his mouth. After the show, Woods decided to take to his official Instagram account to reveal that as a result of taking that uppercut, it made him bite his tongue and that’s the reason he was bleeding so much.
Woods wrote the following in the caption of this post on his account: “As a result of a nasty uppercut from @wwecesaro I have one hole and two partials in my tongue. Eating/talking the next few weeks should be fun.”
Last night on SmackDown Live Xavier Woods took on Cesaro with their respective teammates (Cesaro and The New Day) at ringside. At one point in the match Cesaro was working on Woods in the corner, and The Celtic Warrior took the opportunity to snap a funny selfie.
Woods’ face is in pain from Cesaro’s boot driving into the back of his neck, while Sheamus is all smiles. Check it out:
Ex-WWE and TNA star reacts to fans criticizing wrestling
Former WWE and TNA star Frankie Kazarian recently took to Twitter to offer some lengthy thoughts on some professional wrestling fans criticizing the sport. He also got into some constructive back-and-forth with fans as well. You can check it out here:
I liked it when people were fans. When nobody knew who the booker was. Or cared. Nobody asked “who wrote this segment?” Who was on the creative team was not even remotely a thought. Yes, everything evolves, which is positive. Along the way however, we’ve forgotten to just be fans
— ? Frankie Kazarian ? (@FrankieKazarian) May 8, 2018
Critique is great for art, but art is also subjective. My statement is true for many things I enjoy. Pro wrestling, heavy metal, movies, TV, etc etc etc
— ? Frankie Kazarian ? (@FrankieKazarian) May 8, 2018
I’m certainly not thin skinned. And definitely not telling anyone how to be a fan. Simply MY opinion and MY observation as BOTH a fan and a wrestler. My statement could be said about many forms of entertainment. Perhaps it’s more a commentary on modern pop culture.
— ? Frankie Kazarian ? (@FrankieKazarian) May 8, 2018
Wanting to know about someone behind the scenes, or something off field is great! Criticizing, negativity & complaining constantly seems counter productive to actually enjoying any type of programming. If I find myself doing this, (and I do) I usually just move along.
— ? Frankie Kazarian ? (@FrankieKazarian) May 8, 2018
The New Day’s Xavier Woods recently did an interview with Newsday to promote WWE’s recently released book entitled “The Book of Booty: Shake It. Love It. Never Be It.” In recent weeks The New Day has grown an infatuation with pancakes as they hand them out to fans at ringside during their entrance.
There has been some criticism that their pancake affiliation is a racial stereotype. Woods took the opportunity to shoot that down, saying it instead had to do with a Lumberjack Match they were in late last year:
“I said, ‘Well, if I’m a lumberjack, what do they eat? They eat flapjacks.’ It was hilarious. So, we said the next week, ‘Are we going to do pancakes? Yeah, sure. Why not?’ And that’s where the pancakes came from,” Woods said.
“If there’s ever any source of contention or anything like that, I think that it’s a situation where you should take a look at yourself and think about how deep you are looking into something that’s not really there.”
Woods also pointed out the he and his partners, Big E and Kofi Kingston, are “very aware of how we present ourselves,” but doesn’t want to have to suppress their witty personalities due to being under a racial lens “simply because we are African-American males.”:
“All we want is a blank slate,” Woods said. “And if people continue to refuse to give us one, then they’re doing nothing more than continuing to hold up the social constructs that we’re trying to break down.”
You can read Woods’ full interview with Newsday by clicking this link here.
2018 WWE Hall Of Fame inductee D-Von Dudley was recently a guest on former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia’s podcast, Chasing Glory, to talk about several professional wrestling topics. During the interview Dudley discussed the influence both Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman had on The Dudley Boyz’s, D-Von and Bubba Ray, characters:
“All the promos we were able to shoot and to be good at it is all because of ‘Dr. Frankenstein.’ The Dr. Frankenstein I am referring to is Paul Heyman. He was the creator. We would like to say, Paul Heyman was the one that found and created us, but Vince McMahon molded us into the Superstars that we are today. We are grateful for both men, number one, ECW and Paul Heyman changed the face of Professional Wrestling and helped start the Attitude Era, and of course Vince McMahon, who is the master.
“He is the ‘Yoda’ of Professional Wrestling and Sports Entertainment. I am not just saying that because I still work for the man as a backstage Agent, but when you look at what he has done and where he has brought Professional Wrestling. Whether you like him or not, you see that he has changed Professional Wrestling. Pro Wrestling was that thing that you never talked about, if you did it was only among the selected few. Now, it is one of the biggest things out there and now everybody loves Professional Wrestling.”
Dudley also revealed that he once advised current SmackDown Live star and New Day member Xavier Woods to leave TNA:
“Xavier Woods was in an organization [TNA Wrestling] that I am not too keen on. This organization treated him bad, and Xavier told me that he may have a chance to go to WWE, but he may not and he doesn’t know what to do. We sat and talked for about 40 minutes; till this day he thanked me for making that phone call, and I believe it was Terry Taylor who was helping doing the hiring at the time, not sure who was in charge, but he basically thanked me for helping him make that decision in going to the WWE.
“I am not saying that there wouldn’t have been a New Day without Xavier Woods, but each individual brings something to the table, and I believe the success of all three of them with the charisma and personality is what made New Day who they are today. So, I was very happy when I came back to WWE and Woods was there. I had forgotten all about it until he reminded me that I was one of the reasons that made him go back and have that conversation with WWE.”
You can listen to Dudley’s interview on Chasing Glory by clicking this link here.
As seen at Sunday night’s WWE Fastlane pay-per-view, the title match between The New Day and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos ended in a no contest after The Bludgeon Brothers, Harper and Rowan, came to ringside and destroyed both teams.
WWE noted after the show that Woods was suffering from a thoracic spine injury, contusions to the spine, and that he was being taken to a local hospital to be checked out. This is likely a storyline injury but Woods was stretchered away from ringside while the others were helped to the back by officials.
It appears Rowan and Harper are up for some sort of title match at WrestleMania 34, perhaps a Triple Threat with The New Day and The Usos or a Fatal 4 Way with another blue brand tag team.
WWE announced Woods suffered an injury to his thoracic spine due to The Bludgeon Brothers’ attack.
“Our preliminary diagnosis is multiple thoracic contusions,” explained WWE medical personnel of Woods’ injury. “We’re currently in the process of having him evaluated with X-rays and possibly an MRI for any further damage, such as ruptured discs or fractures of the thoracic spine.”
WWE stated that we should have an update on Woods’ condition on Monday.
Guess who didn't want to see #TheNewDay and The @WWEUsos finish their rivalry…
– Xavier Woods and Jinder Mahal are set to meet on SmackDown Live next week in the next round of the United States Championship Tournament. Woods took to Twitter to take a shot at Mahal by posting a clip of an old match they had on WWE Superstars back in 2014. Woods and R-Truth teamed up to defeat Mahal and Drew McIntyre in tag team action, as Woods pinned Mahal for the victory:
– At last night’s MLK Parade Foundation Honors event in Tampa, Florida, WWE Superstar Titus O’Neil was honored by receiving the Drum Major For Justice Award. He Tweeted out the following:
Proverbs 4:19 The ways of right-living people glow with light The longer they live the brighter they shine. God Placed light inside of you for a reason.LET IT SHINE!!Thanks again 2all of my Family&Friends that came out 2support me receiving the Dr. MLK Drum Major 4Justice Award pic.twitter.com/M6aOdD4xvf
Getting ready to be honored and Awarded tonight at the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Parade Foundation Gala with the “Drum Major For Justice Award” for Family/Community with my friends and Family ?? #Proud#Legacypic.twitter.com/GGqBCfSuPv
– If you were watching SmackDown Live last night you probably noticed that three of the company’s biggest stars were missing – The New Day! Stephanie McMahon Tweeted out the following pictures; revealing that she, Triple H, The New Day, Mark Henry, The Miz, Maryse, and WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels were in California for the Television Critics Association Winter Tour event:
– A hype video has been released for IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega’s clash with former WWE Champion Chris Jericho at Wrestle Kingdom 12 in Tokyo, Japan next month:
– Giant Bomb has an article with Omega and WWE star Xavier Woods naming their top ten video games of the year. In the article Omega and Woods discuss gaming with one another as they’ve both run into each other at gaming conventions over the years, and have built up quite the friendly rivalry.
“Two men met on neutral ground (the rolling hills of The Netherlands) for their yearly meeting where they argue, eat, play video games, almost fight, and talk about their top 10 games of the year… This is their 2017 story.
Kenny: Another year and another top 10! Last year, my good friend Austin and I had so much fun working together, we thought we’d do it again in 2017. I anticipate our lists will be a little different from each other, so this should fuel some very fun and… friendly debate.
Austin: Yes, fun and friendly are the words that I would use for it. I’ll start off by saying that I am honored to be doing another top 10 list with one of the greatest, creative, and most charismatic performers that I have ever met in my life. The one, the only, KENNY OMEGA!
Kenny: And I am glad to introduce a man with the greatest YouTube gaming channel going today, one of the most versatile, intelligent, and talented humans on this Earth… AUSTIN CREED! And you know what…? I’ll say it. I thought you were all just trombones, pancakes, and shenanigans… but heck, you’ve been no slouch in the ring this year either!”
SmackDown Live stars The New Day will be working on the RAW brand for the remainder of the ongoing UK Tour, according to a report at PWInsider.
For those who missed it, New Day made a surprise appearance at the conclusion of Monday’s RAW and interfered in the tag title main event, allowing Cesaro and Sheamus to capture the gold from Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.
The Bar will now face The Usos at Survivor Series in an inter-brand Champions vs. Champions match.
With Roman Reigns expected back on WWE television next week, the stage is set for The Shield vs. New Day at Survivor Series.
Of course, this match occurring depends on Roman Reigns’ health by next week and whether or not he’s medically cleared to return to active competition.
– Former WWE United States Champion AJ Styles wants a rematch. Baron Corbon captured the title at Sunday night’s Hell in a Cell pay-per-view by defeating Styles and Tye Dillinger in a triple threat match.
Styles appeared on Talking Smack after HIAC and gave his pitch that he should be entitled to a rematch since Corbin pinned Tye Dillinger to win the gold, not him.
Meanwhile, Corbin taunted Styles and all the “crybabies out there” after his victory:
– Following last night’s (Sun. October 8, 2017) Hell In A Cell pay-per-view (PPV), The New Day were unsuccessful in defending their SmackDown Live Tag Team Championships against The Usos inside Hell In A Cell.
After the match, Xavier Woods took to Instagram to show off his battle scars from the grizzly match. Check it out here:
Tony Schiavone praised WWE Superstar The Miz earlier today on Twitter. The Miz responded to a tweet sent out by WWE’s account that stated The Miz made his debut over a decade ago. The Miz said that people doubting him is what fueled him to make it this long and that he still fights for respect. Schiavone responded to The Miz and said that the WWE is lucky to have him.
Xaiver Woods is at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend. Woods dressed up as Bayley during the event and danced around. He was then interrupted by someone dressed up as Sasha Banks that shoved him aside.
WWE has released a new Top 10 list on their YouTube channel. The list highlights times in WWE where a Superstar accidentally struck someone that they were not intending to. Big Show knocking over AJ Lee, Macho Man hitting the Elbow Drop on Rick Steiner, Goldberg accidentally Spearing Stone Cold Steve Austin and more are included on the list. You can check out the entire top 10 list in the video below.
Xavier Woods has provided an update on his injury scare (Video) from Monday night’s SmackDown live event and the situation could have been a lot worse.
The New Day member appeared on SmackDown Live on Tuesday evening wearing a knee brace and using crutches to get around, all-the-while toting a sign that read, “It’s Sore,” a reference to the injury.
After undergoing an evaluation backstage at the SmackDown Live taping on Tuesday, WWE’s medical staff determined Woods suffered an MCL sprain. Woods posted the following on Twitter on Tuesday night confirmed that he will still be attending this weekend’s Dragon Con fan fest in Atlanta, GA.
It remains to be seen how long Woods will be out of action, but his MCL sprain has to be considered good news when you consider Big Cass’ ACL tear the previous week resulted in a surgery that will keep him on the sidelines until early 2018.
We noted before how Xavier Woods of the New Day suffered a knee injury during a SmackDown Brand Live Event from Texarkana, AK this past Monday night.
Woods was involved in a tag team match with Kofi Kinston against The Usos and he suffered the injury when he was performing a jumping DDT during the closing moments of the bout.
At that time it was not known how severe the damage was and how long it could keep him out of action, though now the SmackDown Star has revealed the details on his injury.
Xavier recently posted a video from his Youtube Channel UpUpDownDown in which he is seen playing Wind Jammers with Becky Lynch and Renee Young.
During the video, he also talked about his injury and revealed that he has an MCL sprain. Upon hearing this Becky said that she suffered a similar injury recently and it shouldn’t take a long time to heal, as noted by Wrestlinginc.
While Woods didn’t disclose whether it’s a grade-1 or grade-2 injury, grade-2 which is more severe of the two takes about 2 to 4 weeks to heal so he is not expected to stay out of action for very long.
You can watch the video posted by Xavier Woods below, his comments about the injury come around the 9-minute mark:
New Day member Xavier Woods appeared to suffered a knee injury at Monday night’s SmackDown live event from Texarkana, AK.
During a tag match that involved SmackDown tag team champions The Usos and Breezango, the injury occured when Woods went for a jumping DDT and his knee buckled. This clip of the incident has surfaced online:
The referee threw up the dreaded “X” symbol and the match was cut short when one of the Usos rolled up Kofi Kingston for a quick finish. Woods seemed to be in pain and was helped to the back by Kofi, Big E and WWE Dr. Chris Amann.
According to a source backstage at SmackDown, Woods is undergoing an evaluation today to determine the extent of the injury. After the show, Woods tweeted:
New Day member Xavier Woods appeared to suffered a knee injury in a tag match against Breezango and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos at Monday night’s WWE live event in Texarkana, Arkansas.
According to correspondents in attendance, the injury came when Woods went for a jumping DDT and apparently pushed off the wrong way. The knee buckled and Woods went down. The referee threw up the dreaded “X” symbol to call the match and one of the Uso brothers then rolled Kofi Kingston up for a quick finish.
Woods seemed to be in pain after the rushed finish and was not able to leave on his own. He was helped to the back by Kofi, Big E and WWE’s Dr. Chris Amann. One correspondent noted that Woods “wrecked” his knee.
I think Xavier Woods legit hurt his knee #WWETexarkana Get well soon ❤️
– The release date for WWE’s upcoming “Diamond Dallas Page: Positively Living” DVD has been moved from March 21st to April 4th, the day after WrestleMania. DDP is rumored for this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class.
– Ric Flair recently asked his followers what the phrase “lit” means and got a response from the official @Twitter account.
– Referee Charles Robinson was injured during Sunday night’s Royal Rumble match between John Cena and AJ Styles. The foot injury will bench the official, but Robinson pledged to be back in the ring for February’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
Loving my stylish new footwear! Looking forward to being back for @wwe Elimination Chamber in less than two weeks! pic.twitter.com/3bLAi1sy42
The WWE released a video of Daniel Bryan predicting who will win the Royal Rumble match this Sunday. Bryan stated that is going to be a Superstar from Smackdown that will win the match. Daniel Bryan predicted that the winner will either be Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt or Randy Orton.
The WWE posted a video of Mary Tyler Moore interviewed ringside at Wrestlemania VI. Mary Tyler Moore passed away today at the age of 80.
Xavier Woods announced on his YouTube channel that he will be co-hosting this year’s 2017 SXSW Gaming Awards show on March 18th.