During a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho caught up with 2.0's Matt Lee and Jeff Parker to discuss their WWE release and how that led to them joining the AEW roster. They also talked about going from being 3.0 on the independent scene to Ever-Rise in NXT and 2.0 in AEW; unsurprisingly, they didn't love their WWE moniker.
Explaining that the company shot down many of the suggestions they made regarding a new WWE-approved tag team name, Parker revealed how late in the day they were dubbed "Ever-Rise."
"Nothing really sticks but every time we come up with something that might stick, doesn’t get through legal, and it goes all the way up to TV day," Parker says. "Wednesday, we’re there, and it’s 5:45. Doors open at 6:00, show starts at 8:00 and we still don’t have a name. Joe comes up to us. He goes, ‘Okay, so the last name that you guys had, didn’t clear legal. You’re going to be Ever-Rise.’ I go, ‘We’re what?’ It was the first time we ever heard it. It’s officially our name."
"It was never on the table," Lee added. "It just blew our minds. I go, ‘Where did that come from?’ He goes, ‘Well, if I had a band when I was a teenager, I would have named it Ever-Rise.’ At some point, you just own it."
It was at this point in the conversation Jericho dropped a bombshell about The New Day.
"That’s what New Day was. Their original name was literally, this is not a joke, ‘Fresh Coat of Paint’," Le Champion revealed. "They decided on New Day basically right before. If you think about, what does that even mean? Even ‘New Day’, what does that even mean?"
Jericho makes a good point there, but it's a name that's worked for Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods as part of The New Day, and one easier to get over with fans than "Fresh Coat of Paint" (that had to be a Vince McMahon idea, right?).
Check out what happened when 3.0 squared off with Sting by clicking here.