Why The New Day Knew They’d Find Success In WWE Despite Tough Start
According to Kofi Kingston, The New Day were always confident that they would be successful in WWE.
In the coming weeks, WWE will celebrate the 10th anniversary of The New Day with a special episode of Raw dedicated to the team. While they are now one of the most popular acts in the history of the company, Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods got off to a rough start when they formed the faction back in 2014.
In the early days, fans booed the group despite them trying to be babyfaces. Speaking to the New York Post, Kingston said while they weren’t sure the gimmick would work, they knew they would find success.
“I think we didn’t know if the gimmick itself was going to work as it was, but we always knew that we were going to be successful. We always had the utmost confidence that by coming together and people experiencing our chemistry that they were either going to love us or they were going to hate us, but we were going to succeed no matter what.
“We’ve always had that mentality, but to see where people were booing us out of the building, literally telling us that we sucked after having, like, six to eight months of trying our hardest to form something, to get onto TV. As much as we described it over the years, of how hard and difficult it was to get in front of the camera and to have the red light on to be on TV, like, it doesn’t even do it justice what the actual struggle was.”
For Kingston, getting people on board with what they were doing felt like an uphill battle.
“To be fighting against the writers, trying to get in there, to be fighting against our own peers who are looking at us like, why are you guys always hanging out together? Why are you dressing up the same way? We’re trying to do something special. A lot of people didn’t understand what was going on. It was an uphill battle, but we knew, as long as we had each other that we were going to be successful.”
The New Day Are Highly Decorated WWE Champions
As time passed, the group became more and more successful, with Tag Team Titles giving way to singles success, with both Big E and Kingston winning World Titles, while Woods achieved his own childhood dream when he became the King of the Ring in 2021.
“Winning the WWE Championship was my childhood dream. And if I don’t come across E and Woods, if we don’t cross paths and do what we do then that doesn’t happen. Big E becoming WWE Champion, if we’re all not in sync, lockstep together, building ourselves and being entertaining, that doesn’t happen. Woods, becoming King of the Ring, that’s his lifelong dream. And to me, that’s almost more impressive than becoming WWE Champion, because the Kings of the Ring… that’s a really, really small club, and we don’t have that tournament every year. To be in the tournament is a big deal. To win, it is a huge deal.
“We’re still out here pushing. We’re still trying to see how we can challenge ourselves, see what threshold we can cross, see what records we can bring.”
As their 10th anniversary approaches, tensions have been rising between Kingston and Woods, but it has recently been reported that Big E could bring The New Day back together.