The New Day has been through a great deal of trial and tribulation since it formed in 2014. It first started with an initial heel turn in the middle of 2014, with Kofi Kingston, Xaiver Woods and Big E taking a more serious approach to WWE. After this angle was scrapped in only a few weeks due to similarities with the Nation of Domination, it was back to the drawing board. They re-emerged as a group of positivity in November 2014, achieving little success as babyface preachers. It was when the group turned heel after Wrestlemania when the New Day really began to hit their stride. All of a sudden, the New Day has suddenly became one of the most entertaining acts in the WWE. What a turn around for a group that was getting no reaction from even the most patient of crowds…
The biggest problem with the beginning of the New Day was that it was not a gimmick that the WWE universe could really connect with. The three of them were doing their best with the opportunity they were given, but acting as standard preachers was not going to work with such a vocal fan base. Jim Ross put it best when he said: “Today’s wrestling fan may be a little hard on the talented trio,” due to them “espousing such positivity”. It’s almost like if you were going to try and get Bo Dallas over as a babyface. He would be acting a little too much as a good guy for the fans to connect with.
Now obviously, everything that happens in WWE is scripted entertainment. However, when you were watching this storyline it just came off as incredibly fake and unbelievable. It wasn’t realistic enough that the fans could believe in them and rally behind them. Why would a young fan look at the New Day and think “Wow. I want to be just like them”?
Therefore, it was incredibly difficult for this gimmick to work as the fans weren’t into it. The three of them would initially just get no reaction from the crowd. It’s not really because of Big E, Xaiver and/or Kofi. As uninterested in the group as the fans seemed, the WWE itself seemed even less interested. The momentum and the winning streak developed when the repackaged group began abruptly ended just two months later when their feud with Cesaro, Tyson Kidd and Adam Rose began. They were beaten in a six man tag team on the pre-show of the 2015 Royal Rumble and in the Rumble match itself, things got worse.
Kofi Kingston came out just after Daniel Bryan was eliminated, meaning that Kofi was seemingly fed to the wolves as the fans were still angry over Bryan’s elimination. There was nothing Kofi could do in order to get the fans focused on him. His annual Royal Rumble survival spot where the Rosebuds caught him and saved him from elimination received little reaction. Big E entered after the overwhelmingly-hated Roman Reigns entered the Royal Rumble match, which meant there was no chance for him to get a big reaction. These two men representing the New Day both entered the Rumble match at the times when the match’s hatred of this match was at its highest! You had to feel bad for the two of them.
It just seemed that the New Day were never able to get out of first gear when they were booked as babyfaces. When the group started to receive “New Day Sucks” chants, you knew this group was going downhill. The WWE needed to pull something out of the bag in order to save them. It was therefore decided that the WWE decided to listen to what the fans were chanting and use them to their advantage. It was their chance to turn a negative into a positive. It was their chance to use the fans as a catalyst for the heel turn of the New Day.
The chants then started to be acknowledged by the New Day themselves on RAW and SmackDown! The group would seemingly try to forget about the chants and maintain this aura of positivity. The WWE implemented a storyline in which everyone but the New Day themselves were aware of the chants. This eventually led to the New Day beginning to act like heels, with the group needing to cheat in order to win the WWE Tag Team titles. This was the moment where things started to turn around…
With the heel heat already on the New Day, the stable had no problem making the change from good to bad. All they had to do was be as over-the-top as possible and it worked. Whether it’d be with annoying Michael Cole in a sit-down interview or Xaiver Woods playing a trombone and shouting a lot at ringside. It suddenly began to work because it allowed Xaiver, Big E and Kofi to be as creative as possible. Big E is just a genuinely funny guy who could make you laugh with facial expressions alone. Xaiver has a PhD and so many ways in which he could entertain fans other than wrestling. He’s a talker that knows how to work the crowd. Kofi Kingston is now a heel for the first time since he actually debuted in WWE in 2008. He’s got so much to work with being a heel for the first time.
This group has so many possibilities to work with and right now, they’re knocking them out of the park. All of a sudden, the New Day are now grabbing the biggest reactions of the night even with the most hostile of crowds. The fans are starting to connect with the New Day, after seeing them as jokesters and creative guys. They didn’t need to cut down-to-earth lashing promos every week to get over.
However, is the fact that they are now getting favourable reactions actually a hindrance? Jim Ross apparently thinks so, saying: “Apparently, New Day is going to be heels via simply being annoying as hell and not by having legit, heel heat. I like the trio as they are highly entertaining but do you want your top villain team to be overly entertaining or disliked? I’ve got no dog in the hunt but it would be awfully easy for this trio to be fan favorites.”
You can see where JR is coming from. A great heel shouldn’t really be cheered should he? However, I think the fans accepting the New Day now is just them accepting the entertainment of the group. What’s worse than not getting the reaction you’re trying to get is getting no reaction at all. If the fans are not reacting to the New Day, then it’s going to have a negative effect on the product. If you don’t get a reaction then you don’t have a lot to work with. If you’re being cheered or booed, you can use it to your advantage whether you’re a face or a heel.
The Miz was able to use the positive reactions he got in Brooklyn recently and use them to get himself booed. When The Miz was able to bring the fans back into the product by telling them to shut up, he was able to connect with the crowd and re-establish is position as a bad guy. This crowd will do the same for the New Day. This just gives the group more ammunition to work with and it’ll be great to see what they do with it.
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