| “ | Welcome to UpUpDownDown! I am your host, Xavier Woods, aka Austin Creed! | ” |
―Austin Creed when opening up a video. | ||
Austin Watson (born: September 4, 1986), better known online as Austin Creed, and by his WWE ring name Xavier Woods, is an American professional wrestler and gamer. His love for games and movies has made him create his own YouTube channel named UpUpDownDown which regularly features other members of the WWE roster such as fellow New Day members Big E and Kofi Kingston, Sasha Banks, Tyler Breeze, Bayley, WWE referees and more to do challenges and games together. Some of his YouTube success has stemmed from Battle of the Brands to Uno with #DaParty. He also takes part of the official New Day "Feel The Power" podcast.
He was named the new host for the revived G4 series in 2020.
Biography[]
Watson was born in Columbus, Georgia and began wrestling in the South Carolina indies while he was attending Furman University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree in psychology.
After spending a couple of years working indie promotions in South Carolina and Georgia under the name Austin Creed, a combination of his own name and Austin Creed from the Rocky movies, in 2007 Watson was signed by TNA and debuted under the name Consequences Creed as tag partner of Ron "The Truth" Killings (who is now more widely known as WWE's R-Truth), and during his time with the company he won the tag team championship with Jay Lethal.
After leaving TNA in 2010, Watson soon signed a developmental contract with WWE and was assigned to their developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling, initially wrestling under his real name before taking on the moniker of Xavier Woods. During his time in developmental, he won the FCW tag team championship with Wes Brisco, and after FCW rebranded itself as NXT his persona changed to a fanboy of 1990s pop culture such as Dragon Ball Z and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Woods was called up to the main WWE roster in 2013, initially to team with former tag team partner R-Truth, but for the first year or so he appeared sporadically, and often found himself competing in NXT. Things began to change in late 2014 when WWE began hyping a new group called The New Day made up of Woods, Big E and Kofi Kingston - but the initial crowd response to the group, who had the gimmick of a gospel choir preaching a message of positivity, was negative.
By mid-2015 the group's gospel gimmick, which had been rejected by the crowd and was also drawing accusations of having the trio portray racist characters, morphed into the gimmick they play to this day where they still preach positivity - but in a far more unique way, which has caught on with the crowd and made the group a popular part of WWE's programming. During this time the group has also held the WWE tag team championship twice, with their second reign beginning on August 23rd, 2015 and ending on December 18, 2016, to Cesaro and Sheamus at the Roadblock: End of the Line PPV. Watson (along with Big E and Kofi Kingston) is the longest reigning WWE (Raw) tag team champion (defeating Brian Kendrick and Paul London's 331-day reign) and the longest reigning tag-team champion of all time in WWE (defeating Demolition's 478-day reign).
Controversy[]
On March 17th, 2017, a sex tape was leaked on Reddit featuring Woods, WWE star Paige, and former WWE star Brad Maddox which was released without the consent of Woods, Paige or Maddox. Today, the incident has been forgotten for the most part.
Trivia[]
- Watson, along with his New Day teammates, guest hosted the June 30, 2017 edition of Good Mythical Morning.
- UpUpDownDown has collaborated with Smosh Games on multiple occasions.
- UpUpDownDown won the 2020 ESports Award for the ESports Award for Content Creator of the Year in November 2020.[1]
- In 2020, he was named as the new host for the revived G4 series. Previously, people have clamored for him to take the spot with the hashtag #Creed4G4.
Subscriber Milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: March 17, 2017.
- 2 million subscribers: September 1, 2019.