Jim Ross believes Kofi Kingston and Austin Creed could be a strong fit for AEW, but says one major question needs answering first: is there actually room for them as a tag team?

Kingston and Creed, formerly known in WWE as Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, departed the company on May 2 after turning down restructured contracts that reportedly included significant pay cuts. Their respective WWE runs lasted twenty and sixteen years, while their 90-day non-compete periods expired at the beginning of August.

No next move has officially been announced.

Speaking on Grilling JR, Ross was asked about the possibility of the former New Day stars joining AEW. Rather than questioning their talent, he suggested AEW would need a meaningful position ready for them in its tag division.

“Well, you got to make sure you got a spot on your roster for a team. It’s different than signing a single, so you got to have space. You got to have a place. They got to have their quote-unquote spot. So as a team, not as two singles.”

Ross believes bringing the pair in together would give AEW the best chance of getting maximum value from them, although he admitted the current roster picture could make that complicated.

“For them to be as effective as they could be, they need to come in as a team, but I don’t know that that’s feasible. It all depends on who’s here, who’s hot, who’s doing what they’re doing. And I know Tony Khan has got a sharp eye, and they have great charisma, those two guys or three guys, so it’d be interesting to see.”

He added:

“I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to it, but the sticker might be you got to have a high-level spot on your roster for a team, not two singles.”

Ross also offered some insight into WWE's philosophy toward signing tag teams during his years overseeing talent relations. According to JR, teams were valuable, but finding wrestlers who could eventually become major singles stars was often the bigger prize.

“Yeah, I think what people need to remember is that most of the time, when we were hiring tag teams, we had spots on the card for tag teams. There’s no doubt about that. But the real mission in signing a tag team is that you hope you discovered one, at least one, and maybe two great singles out of it, because that’s where your money was. Tag teams didn’t sell as many tickets, to my experience, as did singles.”

“We hired tag teams to find singles, and we knew that teams like the Hardys were less likely to break up. I didn’t think that was going to happen with the Dudleys, but it did. And both of them had good singles careers, especially Bubba, who’s just a natural heel, and he’s smart.”

Ross pointed to Edge and Christian as another example of a team whose singles potential was clear relatively early.

“Edge and Christian, that was an obvious they’re going to be singles sooner than later situation. Even though they were a great team and they drew money and did great on the pay-per-view circuit, I thought that they stayed together about as long as I thought they would. They just had too much potential as singles, and that’s what we were looking for.”

Speculation surrounding Kingston and Creed's future intensified after they released an animated short titled Daybreak on July 29. Created by Jonathan Davenport, the video featured two unicorns escaping a circus and leaving their horns behind, imagery widely interpreted as closing the book on their New Day identities.

Big E, the third member of the hugely successful WWE group, remains out of the ring following the serious neck injury he suffered in 2022.

AEW has already added another decorated former WWE tandem to its ranks, with the Motor City Machine Guns signing with the promotion and making their debut on Collision in Detroit on July 30.

With AEW All In heading to Wembley Stadium on August 30, attention will now turn to whether Kingston and Creed could be the next major names to enter the company's tag team picture.