Big E Saw New Day As A ‘Revolving Door’ Faction, Wanted To Recruit Alicia Fox And Damian Sandow

Throughout their six-year history as a group, New Day remained one solid, strong, stable unit. Though some wondered when the turn was coming, Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods always shot down the idea and wanted to remain together. 

They ended up becoming arguably the greatest tag team in WWE history and certainly the most successful in terms of accomplishments. However, Big E wishes they could have branched out more while remaining a group. 

“We always saw ourselves as this revolving door faction where Kofi can have a singles run and Woods and I can do tag stuff and we would have these interchangeable parts, or we can all have singles (runs). We never really got that until last year when Kofi had his World Title run. That’s what I wish we had done a little bit more of. That would have allowed us to show more sides. I wish we got to operate more as a faction. I’m glad it worked out this way,” said Big E on WWE After The Bell. 

Unfortunately, Big E will get his wish in a roundabout way as New Day was split during the 2020 WWE Draft with Big E remaining on SmackDown while Woods and Kingston were moved to Raw. 

Reflecting on when New Day first got together as preachers of positivity, Big E recalled some early ideas for the group, including potentially recruiting new members. 

“Thinking back to 2014, we always thought we would be a group that would add more members. I remember thinking Alicia Fox being someone we wanted to add because at the time she was doing stuff with the tantrums. Her and [Damian] Sandow we thought would be a great addition. That was the idea; a group that would recruit. It would have been a lot of fun and I wish we got that incarnation of New Day. As grateful as I am that it went the way it did, I’m also kind of intrigued to see what it would have been like for us to have gone that militant route to see what we could have done. We shot so much stuff in pre-tapes and all the ideas we put together, I thought we had something really special and I was excited about that. Obviously, I think it worked out the best for what we did because I don’t think we would have been able to stay together for six years as a militant group,” he said.

The only addition New Day made as a group during their six years together was Woods’ trusty trombone Francesca. 

You can learn more about the origin story of New Day by clicking here.

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