AAAWWWWW CLARION WRESTLING FANS! DON’T YOU DARE BE SOUR! CLAP FOR YOUR FIVE TIME ONMA CHAMPS, AND FEEL THE POWER! IT’S A NEWSDAY YES IT IS!
In all seriousness, welcome to another edition of the Wolski Wrestling Ramblings. This will be a special three part look and tribute to one of my favorite tag teams in wrestling today, and three men I’ve been a fan of for a long time, The New Day.
Even now, at a time where I still enjoy wrestling, but don’t watch a lot of current WWE stuff, I’ll always watch a New Day segment.
The group will celebrate their fourth anniversary as a team this fall, which is an eternity in wrestling years.
The three members, Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods, were all successful wrestlers in their own right winning titles in the company, but their ceiling wasn’t very high. It wasn’t until they joined forces that they became one of the best acts in the WWE.
These articles will look at their story and try to paint the whole history of The New Day thus far and dive into why they have been such a success.
But first, let’s take a look at each member of the group and the path they took to get to the WWE before forming a team.
Kofi Kingston
Kingston was born in Ghana, West Africa and debuted in the WWE in 2008, winning the Intercontinental championships in one of his first matches against Chris Jericho. He had much success early in his career by winning the tag titles with CM Punk later that year and giving an awe-inspiring performance in the 2009 Money in the Bank ladder match at that year’s Wrestlemania.
Kofi was a guy who didn’t talk a lot, but made great impressions with his work in the ring. He became a staple of Money in the Bank and Royal Rumble matches, often performing incredible feats. He was a human highlight reel and was constantly featured and winning championships in the WWE before the formation of the team.
By 2014 he had won the Intercontinental Championship four times, the United States Championship three times, and the Tag Team Championships three times.
By this time, Kingston became stagnant in his career, and was in a bit of a rut. He was contemplating retiring and leaving the wrestling business. But this would all change on the July 21, 2014 episode of Monday Night Raw.
Big E
Big E was a former powerlifter and professional football player, having won the USA Powerlifting Championship in 2010 and 2011. During this time he was also signed to a developmental contract with WWE, wrestling in their training facility Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW).
When FCW rebranded into WWE NXT in 2012, Big E became a featured star there, going on a winning streak before capturing the NXT championship from Seth Rollins in January 2013.
Around that time, he debuted on the main roster, being Dolph Ziggler’s bodyguard and wrestling from time to time. The partnership broke up that summer, and Big E became a singles star, winning the Intercontinental championship in November and holding it for six months.
Following this, he remained a star, feuding with Rusev and participating in title matches. He then teamed with Kofi Kingston in the summer of 2014, the two having little success. That was until he met Xavier Woods.
Xavier Woods
Woods probably had the most interesting and diverse path to becoming a WWE star. Woods attended college at Furman University in 2005, and in addition to his schooling, trained to be a pro wrestler.
He would wrestle in several indie promotions such as NWA Anarchy and Deep South Wrestling, winning titles here and there. He then had his first appearance in TNA in the fall of 2007 at the Bound for Glory pay per view, teaming up with Ron “The Truth” Killings facing AJ Styles and Tomko.
His name was Consequences Creed, and he dressed like Apollo Creed from the Rocky series. Creed would disappear from TNA for a few months before returning in April 2008 at the Lockdown event and challenging for the X-Division title.
He stayed in TNA until spring 2010, teaming with Jay Lethal and competing for the X-Division and Tag Team championships, with little success.
He then came to the WWE in spring 2010, wrestling in their two developmental systems FCW, and later NXT. His gimmick was that of a 1990’s fan, and would use moves from “Dragon Ball” and “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”
He dropped that part of the gimmick once he was promoted to the main WWE roster in November 2013. Coincidentally, he joined with his former partner in TNA R-Truth to beat 3MB.
He took over the funk gimmick previously held by Brodus Clay, and feuded with him. For the first half of 2014, Woods competed in battle royals and stayed in the midcard. That was until an interaction with Big E and Kingston on a July episode of Raw.
The Formation and Early Trials of The New Day
On the July 21, 2014 episode of Raw, Big E and Kofi Kingston lost a match to Rybaxel, the latest in a long losing streak. Following the loss they were greeted by Xavier Woods, who told them that it was their time to take what they wanted.
At first glance it looked like the group would form a militant black faction similar to the Nation of Domination in the Attitude Era. However, following this segment, the three disappeared from WWE TV.
They mainly worked the house show circuit for the rest of 2014, with vignettes airing in November proclaiming the arrival of a New Day. They involved each member of the group performing a sermon while a choir sang their theme song behind them.
It was viewed by many as a step backwards for the WWE, as the company had a history of shoehorning black performers into stereotypical gimmicks that consist of singing and dancing, voodoo and crime. Some of these gimmicks include (among others) Flash Funk, Papa Shango, The Godfather, Farooq, Cryme Tyme, Virgil, Kamala and Akeem the African Dream.
The group preached about the power of positivity and tried to make the audience clap along with them. They did for the first month, and then the New Day started to get no reactions, despite their solid ring work. They participated in a fatal four way tag match for the titles at Wrestlemania 31, but lost to Tyson Kidd and Cesaro.
The following month the group turned heel, cheating to win matches and being more aggressive with their theatrics, claiming that “if we don’t clap, we snap.” They beat Kidd and Cesaro at the Extreme Rules pay per view in 2015 and held the titles for three months. At this point the group became obnoxious cheating wrestlers that took shortcuts to win matches.
Now instead of chanting “New Day Rocks,” the crowd passionately chanted “New Day Sucks.” The group finally got a crowd to react to them and were starting to breathe a unique new life into the New Day gimmick. Their success was only beginning.
Check out The Clarion tomorrow for the next chapter of The New Day’s history, including their history making 483 tag team championship reign and the time they hosted Wrestlemania 33.
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor
