New Day On Being Taken Off TV After Forming The Group, Vince Being Disappointed About Babyface Run

As noted, New Day recently appeared on Talk Is Jericho. During the show, Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E talked about the formation of their group and Vince McMahon's thoughts on the New Day gimmick.

Woods said that the idea for the New Day stable began as he worked on creating a new heel character for himself.

"So I'm working on that character, trying to get something going and then I'm kind of realizing that, 'oh, [Big] E's not doing anything, he's kind of coming off his I.C. title run and starting to float, so, you know what? I like E, he's one of my good friends, lets see if we can merge him into this'. So we kind of start working on something, literally weeks at a time, and we're going into pretapes, filming things, pitching ideas and then we're thinking, 'something is missing from this, like, we need one more thing.'

"That's when we kind of thought, 'maybe Kofi', but it was kind of a heel thing. We're thinking, 'Kofi has never been a heel – I don't know if [WWE] would let him turn heel'. After talking about it for a while, we kind of approached them with what we wanted to do and rather than being this group that everyone thought it was going to be, like three angry black guys, it's like, 'no, it's three guys who come up from kind of the same background, that just want more from life, more from their jobs, more from their friends, more from everything around them'. So we tried to take that mentality and get it across TV as best we could and we did."

After teasing the formation of a stable comprised of Woods, Kingston, and Big E on television for a couple of weeks, the trio was abruptly taken off television in what Woods described as a "hectic scenario."

"We got taken off [TV] and then we basically had to reevaluate and come up with something different," Kingston said. "We were told we needed to go in a kind of positive, uplifting type of direction and we would be going into Vince [McMahon's] office, pretty much every week for probably months."

As noted, Kingston said that the group pitched a comedic APA type of gimmick to McMahon, but they did not hear back from McMahon for several weeks.

"We kind of got frustrated too and then we didn't go back to his office for a little while and then he called us back in, like, a few weeks later, and he's like, 'you know, guys, it [has] taken me a long time to come up with this, but I think I got it: I want you guys to be preachers' and all three of us are like, 'oh my god'."

Kingston called the preacher gimmick the complete opposite of what they wanted to do and completely outside of his comfort zone; however, Big E saw it as an opportunity. At the time, Big E thought that while the babyface idea from Vince would be very difficult to make good, the selling point would be the chemistry between the three of them. Big E elaborated, "the idea might suck, but I think people will see the camaraderie". Woods, Kingston and Big E believed that an over-the-top presentation of the positive New Day gimmick could result in success as a heel stable.

"I don't know if we have ever said this out loud to someone else, but when we were given the [preacher] gimmick, and saw what it was, and felt what we were doing, we figured, if we threw everything we can, smiling, clapping, happiness, everything into this babyface gimmick, it will not take long to turn heel," Woods said. "That's pretty much what happened after a few months, but the thing was, we had to go, essentially, ask, 'hey, can we pull the trigger on this [heel turn]'?"

Despite popular belief, the New Day confirmed that McMahon never envisioned the New Day as a heel stable. Kingston claimed that McMahon thought the New Day preacher gimmick was "the greatest babyface thing ever." Woods added that it pained McMahon that the preacher gimmick didn't work as a babyface gimmick, noting that McMahon was visibly emotional when talking about the failed babyface run a few weeks ago.

During the podcast, the New Day also talked about the New Day clap and stable names they rejected such as Fresh Coat of Paint and KBX. To listen to the whole episode of Talk Is Jericho, click here.