When The New Day debuted, it was with an admittedly pretty terrible gimmick, and fans wasted no time at all in turning on them. Of course, the charismatic trio would ultimately use that to their advantage, becoming a great heel stable and eventually one of the most popular WWE stables of all-time.
During this week's The New Day: Feel The Power podcast, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E interviewed former WWE writer Mike Notarile, and the E shared his thoughts on those early days for the faction and the fact he believed that The New Day not working out would be the end of his career.
"I think it also for us it came from like a place of desperation at least for me. Like I’ve talked about many times, I felt like if this doesn’t go well, then I’m gone or I’m sent back down to NXT," he explained. "It just feels like this is it. This is the last big pitch. All my chips have to be in on this. I have to give you my trust. I have to listen because you knew so much more than I did at the time, especially about how things work or the best way to put this thing together."
"I think instantly it all just felt right when Woods first came to me and then we worked with you and then with Kofi," Big E continued. "It felt like, ok, these are the four men that should be working on this together. It just felt like all the pieces were where they needed to be. I didn’t know what in incarnation or how long the group would last. Getting six months of a faction would have been great. If you told me, hey, you’ll be on TV for 6 months, I would have been like I’m sold, and the fact that we are six years in and still going is amazing."
It is pretty remarkable to see how popular The New Day remains, and the fact WWE hasn't dropped the ball on them creatively is actually sort of mind-blowing. It's Big E, Kingston, and Woods who are deserving of the credit, though, as they remain often the most entertaining part of any show they're part of.
What do you guys think?