Xavier Woods On If He Felt The New Day Was Failing At First, Vince McMahon's Support, His Idols
RauteMusik recently shared an interview with WWE Superstar Xavier Woods. Among other things, Woods discussed his pro wrestling idols in the 1990s, whether The New Day being booed by crowds initially meant that the gimmick was a failure, and WWE Chairman Vince McMahon supporting The New Day from its inception.
When asked who he his idolized in the 1990s, Woods named 2 Cold Scorpio, The 1-2-3 Kid, and 2000s tag team Billy and Chuck.
"Some of the guys that I liked in the 90s, my favorite wrestler was 2 Cold Scorpio. My favorite tag team was Billy and Chuck. I was really into X-Pac, when he was The 1-2-3 Kid in WWE back in the day. So I was really into more over-the-top, entertaining kind of characters, larger-than-life types of things. That's the part of wrestling that I really enjoyed."
According to Woods, The New Day being booed by the WWE Universe early on in the faction's run does not mean that the gimmick failed because the genre is simply about getting reactions out of the audience.
"[The gimmick] didn't fail because the point of what we're doing is trying to get a response from people, whether they are booing you or whether they are cheering for you, as long as they are making noise and they have some sort of emotional attachment, then you have succeeded. Now with us, when we came out, people were booing because they did not like us. We didn't change anything. We kept doing everything the same as when we debuted. And after a few months, people started cheering for us because, then, they understood what we were and they understood who we were and they realized that they enjoy it. So I wouldn't say that we failed at all because the crowd definitely felt a certain kind of way about us, which is exactly what we're trying to do every time we go out there."
Also during the interview, Woods talked about McMahon being a believer of The New Day since the beginning.
"[McMahon] was one of the very few people who actually believed in us, that we'd be able to make all this stuff work. And so, having him support us is definitely huge. He helped us out a lot. But yeah, no, he's definitely happy that his help and his input and his ideas were able to be put to use in this type of way to where it has been as successful as it has been."
If you use any of the quotes that appear in this article, please credit RauteMusik with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: RauteMusik