Big E has revealed the gimmick the New Day was pitched to emulate when they first got together.
The stable went on to become one of the most popular groups in WWE history. The New Day are 14-time tag team champions in the WWE while both Kofi Kingston and Big E went on to become WWE Champions. However, the gimmick was almost completely different to start with.
Big E recently wrote in The Player’s Tribunal about the original idea for The New Day. He revealed that Xavier Woods had the idea for a rebooted Nation of Domination. However, it soon became clear it wasn’t them. The idea soon shifted to them being given the gimmick of gospel preachers.
Big E On The Original Idea For The New Day
“Actually, Woods’s initial idea for The New Day was to reboot the Nation of Domination, the Attitude Era group that The Rock got his start in. The Nation was a faction of Black militants. And while it had a lot of cool moments (and those guys are all legends) … Woods, Kofi and I are not militants. But I think that just tells you what it’s been like at times to be a young Black wrestler trying to make it. You pitch based on what you feel will get you on TV. And what you feel will get you on TV is probably what’s gotten on TV before. And what’s gotten on TV before is a very narrow definition of Blackness.”
Big E shares how gospel came into play
“That’s pretty much how we ended up being given the gospel-inspired idea for our debut. The day that Road Dogg sent me to pretapes, I played around with a bunch of different deliveries. And the one thing they liked was when I started using this voice that was kind of this Apostolic style of preaching — the style I grew up with. Then I guess the office heard it, and decided, you know, Let’s lean into the gospel!!! Because for some reason they were enamored by the southern Black church. That was a tough one. Black gospel is not who I am, and it’s definitely not who Kofi and Woods are. But we weren’t really in a position to push back on it. So even though we knew we were about to get booed out of every building……. we just did our best.”
On Raw this week, the New Day celebrated ten years of being together in a group. While it ended in Big E being kicked out by Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, the length and success of their time together is still a remarkable achievement.
