July 21st, 2014 was just another Monday night for 11-year-old Dylan Murray. While I don’t remember many of the details, I do remember sitting in my living room and watching that night’s episode of Monday Night Raw. In hindsight, the show was precisely what you’d expect from that era of WWE’s flagship; Brock Lesnar challenged John Cena to a match at that year’s SummerSlam, Roman Reigns battled Randy Orton and Kane in a handicap match, and The Miz faced Dolph Ziggler for the millionth time in singles competition. To put it bluntly, the episode doesn’t stand out from the crowd whatsoever. However, I still remember it. Not because of the endless tyranny of The Authority or due to it being a prelude to the grand opening of Suplex City, but because of something that happened in the middle of the show that changed my life forever.
After losing to RybAxel in just three minutes, Kofi Kingston and Big E stood solemnly in the ring, disillusioned by the outcome of the match. While a loss to a rising tag team would typically not be something to get worked up over, 2014 had been an undeniably rough year for both E and Kofi up to that point. Outside of a handful of upset victories earlier in the year, Kofi was struggling to remain relevant after over six years on WWE’s main roster. In fact, 2014 was the only year since 2008 that Kingston did not win a championship of any kind, and fans of his – my younger self included – worried if he’d be able to bounce back. As for Big E, the powerhouse began 2014 in pretty good shape on paper. The former Iowa Hawkeye walked into 2014 as the Intercontinental Champion with a last name to be proud of. However, his progress as an overall performer was at a standstill, being presented as nothing more than the “strong and silent black guy” before losing his title (and last name) by the Spring.
Credit: WWE (2014)
Despite their struggles, Big E and Kofi Kingston were still two of my favorite wrestlers on the roster at that time. Kofi Kingston was my guy from his days as a Jamaican, and my familiarity with the dark ages of NXT and love of the 5 Count made me a Big E fan from the time he debuted on the main roster. So, when Xavier Woods – someone who I was admittedly less familiar with at the time – arrived on the scene in a sharp red and white suit to motivate and recruit the two dejected stars, I was excited. Something about that segment resonated with me and made me want to know what was next for the three of them, whatever it may be. Little did I know, the fun was just getting started.
For me, there are few trios in the history of professional wrestling on the level of The New Day. Even in the years since their initial explosion in popularity and after becoming a less avid viewer of WWE TV, I’ve remained up to date with the affairs of the three brothers in arms to this day. In 2019, when the first episodes of their podcast The New Day: Feel The Power released, I listened to the few released episodes on repeat as I worked at my minimum wage job. And today, even as an adult, I still go back to those early episodes of the podcast because they tell the story of the group’s true origins. While it’s hard to be a wrestling fan and not know about The New Day’s greatest achievements as a team and as individuals, those preliminary episodes of Feel The Power gave insight into the seemingly neverending struggles that they went through to make it to that level. So, in my first contribution to the Best of Black Wrestling series, I decided to highlight the origin of one of the best all-black tandems in professional wrestling history.
Darkest Before Dawn
While I already briefly talked about what issues were plaguing E and Kofi leading up to that fateful night in July, Xavier Woods’ situation was the most dire of them all. Despite their respective rough patches, Kofi had already created a legacy on the main roster up to that point, and people seemed to believe in E despite his alleged shortcomings. For Woods, however, things never really got off the ground following his main roster debut in 2013. After making his first appearance on the November 18th, 2013 episode of Monday Night Raw as a friend of R-Truth’s, Woods soon found himself at odds with Brodus Clay as 2013 came to an end. As can’t be too much of a shocker, this did not lead to a very strong debut run, and by 2014, Woods was losing practically every televised match he participated in.
To say Woods was low on the main roster totem pole around this time would be an understatement, so the idea of him getting Kingston and Big E to be a part of his faction rubbed some people the wrong way. Many members of the roster saw the idea as below Kofi, and beyond that, it would break the unspoken rule that Woods had learned early on in his WWE career. On the first episode of Feel The Power, Woods discussed how Kofi’s mere existence affected him during his time in FCW:
“In 2010 everyone was telling me, ‘You have to do something to differentiate yourself because we have a Kofi’… Coming to Kofi was actually one of the harder things for me to do because my whole career I tried to separate myself from Kofi… I was always told ‘We have a high-energy black guy, you need to be something different.’”
Xavier Woods, The New Day: Feel The Power
Kofi resisted his peers’ pressure and got on board with Woods and E anyway, though issues remained regarding the concept of the group. All three members initially envisioned their group to be heels, but due to Kofi’s longstanding status as the ultimate babyface, it seemed unrealistic that the company would allow him to turn on a whim. Regardless, Woods pitched the idea for him to create a faction to WWE creative, likening his plans to a modern version of the Nation of Domination when doing so.
While Woods emphasized that it was never his true ambition to be likened to the Nation of Domination, the kneejerk comparison was frankly unsurprising. Whether it’s due to ignorance or not, many all-black wrestling factions have been compared to the Nation of Domination – a primarily black faction from the 1990s that was heavily inspired by the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam–despite usually sharing very few similarities outside of the color of their skin. Though they stayed away from the race-related frustrations that fueled the Nation in the 90s, New Day’s initial presentation as “disgruntled black men” played off the old archetype well, though it was clearly not built to last. Instead, Vince McMahon presented our three protagonists with a different, slightly more out-of-the-box gimmick that would play into their race far more than they initially intended.
Preaching to the Choir?
After a brief hiatus in the Autumn of 2014, Big E, Xavier Woods, and Kofi Kingston returned to WWE television in the form of vignettes that aired weekly on RAW and SmackDown. The short videos depicted a black church choir singing and clapping along to The New Day theme song, with alternating members of the trio delivering their own rendition of an overenthusiastic preacher delivering a motivational speech. In hindsight, these vignettes are wildly entertaining, but my younger self found it utterly disappointing to see a team that I was initially excited about be repackaged into something as “gimmicky” as three preachers. While I was eventually proven wrong, I was far from the only one left disappointed back in 2014.
The decision for the three black men to portray church preachers came directly from Vince McMahon. They all obliged due to their determination to be presented as a trio on TV, the gimmick left much to be desired from The New Day. One major point they mentioned in that first episode of Feel The Power was their desire to move away from the stereotypically black characters they had played up to that point. Similar to comparisons to the Nation of Domination, the WWE often has a not-so-subtle way of pigeonholing its black roster members, and our three protagonists were no different; Kofi Kingston broke on the scene playing a foreigner, Woods a guy who smiled and danced, and Big E a silent bodyguard. Their desires to break that mold and be something original were somewhat answered, but the gimmick still felt like a step in the wrong direction when it came to stereotypical black characters.
While the boys quickly adjusted to the gimmicks and attempted to make the most of it, the opinions both backstage and online were overwhelmingly negative. Woods recalled people deeming him the anchor of the group before they even got the chance to debut. When they did eventually make their in-ring debut as The New Day in November 2014, crowd reception was initially somewhat positive, but that didn’t last very long. In the weeks that followed their debut the live audience, much like the internet fanbase, had turned on the trio. It became clear that the group wouldn’t last if they continued to be portrayed as babyfaces like McMahon wanted.
Despite the group struggling to get cheered on by the crowd, McMahon & co. were unwilling to turn Kofi Kingston heel due to his perceived “eternal babyface” status within the company. This was to the detriment of the group because, unsurprisingly, three preachers talking about the “power of positivity” was not something that wrestling fans wanted to cheer for. While this didn’t necessarily surprise Woods, Kofi, and E, it did frustrate them immensely during their first few months as an on-screen trio. Kofi specifically detailed this conflict in the episode of Feel The Power entitled “As The New Day Turns” when he reflected on their initial run as babyfaces:
“In a roundabout way, we wanted to be bad guys anyway… but we didn’t have this vision in mind. The fact that we were getting to be bad guys [due to the crowd turning on them] made me happy, but at the same time, the way the people were rejecting us pissed me off… People were rejecting us and giving us what we wanted, but we didn’t want it like that.”
Kofi Kingston, The New Day: Feel The Power
By the Spring of 2015, it was clear that they needed to adapt to the crowd reactions, which were getting louder, but even more negative. The New Day had become one of the most berated acts on WWE television, with the creation of the “New Day Sucks” chant being the final nail in the coffin for their initial run as babyfaces. The trio began clicking during house show loops and global tours when they were allowed to present a more obnoxious, heelish side due to the lack of micromanagement from the creative team. At the time, the reigning WWE Tag Team Champions were “The Masters of the WWE Universe” Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, two workhorses that, despite being heels, were well-respected by fans and could easily transition into babyfaces if the opportunity presented itself.
With this, a perfect storm was created; The New Day was a group of babyfaces who needed to be heels, and The Masters were a duo that the crowd was willing to cheer for. All that was needed was for the go-ahead to put the plan into motion. So, finally, Woods went to McMahon and explained to him why he believed The New Day needed to be heels, going as far as to say Vince could fire him if he could not get the fans to actively boo Kofi Kingston. All Woods asked for was to be given a microphone and time to use it. McMahon took Woods up on his offer, and a few weeks later The New Day was the top heel tag team in the company.
True Power (of Positivity)
Xavier Woods, who was initially called the anchor of The New Day, put his career on the line for the trio and led them to the promised land. Since turning heel in 2015, the members of New Day have racked up numerous accolades and accomplishments, becoming one of the most decorated three-man groups in WWE history. Beyond that, they did it together. One thing that often frustrates me in wrestling is that teams are often built to be destroyed, and no partnership is allowed to last forever. However, this isn’t the case for The New Day. Since July 21, 2014, the three men have remained by each others’ side, never sowing dissent, never growing jealous of one another, and always looking out for what’s best for the group. Now, I’m not saying that wrestling factions need to stay together forever, but as someone who finds the true magic in wrestling by looking at the bonds that wrestlers share, The New Day has grown to embody an everlasting friendship that is unlike any other in the world of pro wrestling.
Credit: WWE (2014)
I focused my retrospective on those preliminary months of The New Day because that first year feels so much more meaningful with the power of hindsight. While we would eventually get the chance to bare witness to each member of our beloved trio’s triumphant moments, I always find myself looking back at their days preaching about the power of positivity and getting booed for it. Every time I see them deliver another classic match against The Usos, I think back to Woods empowering Kofi and E in that white and red suit. For every milestone achievement that The New Day experiences, I remember that 11-year-old boy excited to see some of his favorite wrestlers find a new direction in WWE.
If you couldn’t tell by now, The New Day has had a profound impact on me as both a wrestling fan and as a person more than almost any other wrestler I’ve ever watched. Their persistence and commitment to what they believe in are genuinely commendable. Kofi, E, and Woods take pride in the fact that they present a form of authenticity that many black characters in mainstream wrestling haven’t gotten the chance to; The “Stereotypical Foreign Black Guy” got the chance to embrace his true culture, the “Strong And Silent Black Guy” has shown he’s one of the funniest guys on the roster, and the dancing black guy built an empire out of his love for video games and nerd culture. At the risk of sounding parasocial, what started as my 11-year-old self appreciating three wrestlers I liked has become my 20-year-old self appreciating three people I cherish and respect.
There are a million things that make The New Day special to me, and I’ve only touched on a few of them in this piece today. Perhaps someday I’ll come back and write about the beauty of KofiMania, Big E’s long-awaited World Championship win, or maybe even Xavier Woods becoming King of the Ring. I could go into detail about how they showcased parts of black culture and transformed what it means to be a comedy wrestling act in WWE. Hell, I could talk about why their match against The Usos at Hell In A Cell 2017 was one of the greatest tag team matches in WWE history. When it comes to The New Day, there are so many things to appreciate. However, for today, I just wanted to appreciate the least popular phase of their tenure. At the end of the day, everybody’s gotta start somewhere, and for the greatest tag team in WWE history, it all started on July 21st, 2014…
A New Day,
A New Way,
With No Half-Steppin.
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