Big E Wanted The New Day To Feud With Top WWE NXT Faction
WWE Champion Big E was a guest on My Mom's Basement with Robbie Fox this week. He revealed that The New Day had hoped to face the Undisputed Era when the NXT faction was around.
"We always wanted to do stuff with Undisputed Era," he confessed. "We even talked about going down to NXT at some point and just doing a run with them. That was something we just really wanted to do. Those guys were just so incredibly hot, they had a great run down there."
Big E did get to work against them when NXT got involved in Survivor Series. That is something that he felt was cool and added something to the PPV.
"But that version of Survivor Series where we involved NXT, I thought was cool and unique. It added a different flavor to Survivor Series. We didn't get our Faction vs. Faction match with Undisputed Era, but being a part of the stuff with Viking Raiders and those guys was cool."
Big E also spoke about The New Day's setup for matches. He revealed that the group made an effort to get Xavier Woods more in-ring time.
"Initially, that first year or so it was almost always me and Kofi with Woods on the floor," he said. "Just because Vince was such a big fan of Woods playing the trombone and he was so great on the floor, he just loved him in that role. It had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't think he was good enough in the ring or anything like that. He just did a great job on the floor.
"We eventually got to a point where we really felt it was important for us to just get Woods going and get him involved. Honestly, it just allowed us to be a lot more multiple," he reflected. "We were able to have the program with The Usos. I think one of the reasons we were able to go on for –I want to say it was five months, our program with The Usos in 2017, I think.
"I think the reason that worked is that we have three different tag teams in one faction," Big E pointed out. "That helped us a lot. I think it was around mid to late 2015 where we made a more concerted effort to say, 'Look, we want to include Woods.' We even went as far as naming our separate pairings with little nicknames."
He also discussed how the group would eventually just pick for themselves who would wrestle. He pointed out that the switching helped his body.
"Eventually we got a certain level of trust where we would go to them and say, 'The plan today is Woods and Big E wrestling.' Then the producers just knew," Big E claimed. "Thankfully we got that trust where people weren't really fighting us on it and we were able to pick our tandem. I am really grateful for that.
"In many ways, I think it added some time to my career because I was saving my body a little bit," he said. "We were on the road a lot, but on these live event days, I am working two out of three days. And they're tag matches as well, so it helped us a lot from a standpoint of continuing to remain fresh, and it also saved our bodies a little bit."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit My Mom's Basement with Robbie Fox, with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.