Chris Jericho Reveals Odd Moniker Originally Planned For New Day
Chris Jericho has revealed the baffling name that was proposed for the trio of Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods before they became The New Day in 2014.
Woods and Big E were relative newcomers to the main roster of WWE while Kingston had been plying his trade for several years at that point and had held numerous championships. However, with a stacked roster, opportunities to stand out were becoming scarcer for the three men.
Finding strength in unity, Woods brought the group together in July 2014 with vignettes based on gospel music and preaching aired before the unit’s eventual debut in November. Together the group withstood a tricky start and have gone on to become what WWE has called the greatest tag team of all time.
However, things could have been very different had the trio debuted with what was supposedly the original name for the group.
Speaking to the new AEW tag team 2.0 on his Talk Is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho discussed where the duo’s former NXT moniker of Ever-Rise came from before revealing The New Day’s original name:
“That’s what New Day was. Their original name was literally, this is not a joke, ‘Fresh Coat of Paint.’ They decided on New Day basically right before. If you think about it, what does that even mean? Even ‘New Day’, what does that even mean?”
During their time as The New Day, the trio has captured various versions of tag team gold in the company an incredible eleven times. They also boast the longest WWE Tag Team Title reign in history, holding the belts for an astonishing 483 days. The group may have arguably had their greatest success when Kofi Kingston broke out of the tag team scene and captured the WWE Championship from Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 as ‘KofiMania’ ran wild.