Chris Jericho Reveals Original Name WWE Planned For The New Day

On a recent episode of the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho sat down with Matt Lee and Jeff Parker of 2.0, f.k.a. Ever-Rise to discuss their time in WWE after their releases in late June. Lee and Parker were more commonly known as 3.0 on the indie scene, and they revealed the process behind the name Ever-Rise in WWE NXT.

"So getting stuff through legal in WWE is not an easy process," Parker pointed out. "Just getting anything through is not easy.

"We knew we didn't want to be 3.0 anymore because it has no context in WWE," Lee noted. "We need a new name. Initially, we were just going to be, my name was Matt Martel, and he was Chase Parker, we were just gonna be Parker & Martell. And at some point, the thinking was, we're going to say something in a promo, say something during a match, it's going to catch on, and that will just become our team name.

"And then two days before we were set to debut, this is September 2019 so when the AEW – NXT thing started, writer Joe pulls us aside, and he goes, 'You guys are gonna debut on TV tomorrow, but Hunter wants you to have a name.' And we're like, whoa, well, we got to figure it out. We go into a room with Road Dogg and another writer named Baker, and we just start pitching names but nothing sounds writing.

"Everything's awful," Parker admitted. "We go from trying to figure out maybe there's some French names. We could do 'l' héritage', which is The Heritage. That comes back to, 'Hunter doesn't want you to be French because you'll be wearing a beret in no time.' Fair enough. We come up with different names.

"Nothing really sticks but every time we come up with something that might stick, doesn't get through legal, and it goes all the way up to TV day. Wednesday, we're there, and it's 5:45. Doors open at 6:00, show starts at 8:00 and we still don't have a name. Joe comes up to us. He goes, 'Okay, so the last name that you guys had, didn't clear legal. You're going to be Ever-Rise.' I go, 'We're what?' It was the first time we ever heard it. It's officially our name.

"It was never on the table," Lee said. "It just blew our minds. I go, 'Where did that come from?' He goes, 'Well, if I had a band when I was a teenager, I would have named it Ever-Rise.' At some point, you just own it."

Jericho noted that even a tag team like the New Day had a strange name at first. Jericho revealed what he had heard from Xavier Woods about the New Day's original name.

"That's what New Day was. Their originally name was literally, this is not a joke, 'Fresh Coat of Paint'," Jericho revealed. "They decided on New Day basically right before. If you think about, what does that even mean? Even 'New Day', what does that even mean?

"Rhyno, Big Show, all these things, they're awful at first, but now it's so common," Parker added. "Yeah, we're the Ever-Rise, and then we just started saying, 'Ever-Rise rules!'"

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.