Left to right: Xavier Woods, Big E, Kofi Kingston.
Next to Xavier: Francesca the trombone.
Next to Xavier: Francesca the trombone.
"You cannot move ahead by shaking hands, kissing babies, singing and dancing like a puppet. You cannot move ahead by always doing what you're told. Now, this is our time. This is our place. It is time for us to find focus. It is up to us to find order. Together it is our time to find purpose because we do not ask any longer. Now, we take."
The New Day is a 3-man stable in WWE consisting of Big E (formerly "Big E. Langston"), Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods.
The stable debuted in November 2014 with a gimmick reminiscent of Southern Baptist preachers, complete with a backup gospel choir and a lot of Clap Your Hands If You Believe. For the first few months, they were not exactly well-received, with most finding the gimmick to be corny, racist and not fitting in well with the general tone of WWE.
However, an extremely subtle Face–Heel Turn combined with a doubling down of their hamminess and a run at the tag-team titles made them one of the biggest hits in the company. By keeping up basically the same shtick but as villains, they immediately went from awkward and corny to absolutely glorious trolls who were masters of insulting everyone in the WWE Universe with smug smiles on their faces.
This made the trio so popular that they became the de facto faces of the company's roster, completing another subtle turn simply by phasing out heel tactics in early 2016. Between the RAW and Smack Down titles, they are the ten-time, and longest-reigning... "W. W. E. World. Tag. Team. CHAMPIONS!"
And during their run together, Kofi defeated Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 to finally become the... "W. W. E. World. Heavy. Weight. CHAMPION!"
After a six-year uninterrupted run together, The New Day were broken up in the 2020 Draft when Kingston and Woods were drafted to RAW while Big E was separately drafted to remain on SmackDown, with the team having one last 3v3 tag match on the next SmackDown against The Bar and Shinsuke Nakamura as a farewell celebration. A year later, however, they were reunited when Big E cashed in his Money in the Bank contract on Bobby Lashley to become the second member of the team to win the WWE Championship.
"These tropes are BOOTY!":
- Always Introduces Themselves: Their introduction, screamed by Big E:"AAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW, <name of city>! DON'T YOU DARE BE SOUR! CLAP FOR YOUR WORLD-FAMOUS <number>-TIME CHAMPS AND FEEL THE POWER!"note
- Animal-Eared Headband: A variation with their unicorn horn headbands, which they usually wear during their promos, and inevitably get mocked for by some face characters. (The Rock even referred to them as "llama penises" when they interrupted one of his promos.)
- Animal Motif: They have a unicorn motif, as mentioned above.
- The Artifact: Their principal logo (an eagle either with the sun in or over it) and their theme song are the only things that remain from their initial gimmick as southern gospel types.
- Artifact Title: Consistently refer to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship by its full name even though the "World Heavyweight" portion was phased out of the official title in 2016.
- Arch-Enemy: most consistently, their rivalries have been with Sheamus (individually, as part of the League of Nations, and as part of The Bar), The Bar (in which they insult Sheamus and tolerate Cesaro as he was their first rival during his team with Tyson Kidd) feud with The Brawling Brutes with Ridge Holland and Butch, The Usos (in a rivalry that gradually evolved into Worthy Opponent and Friendly Enemy), The Hurt Business and The Viking Raiders.
- Balance, Speed, Strength Trio: Xavier is the balanced one, the high-flying and risky Kofi as the speedy one, and Big E. being the obvious powerhouse.
- Beware the Silly Ones: They are as goofy as they are skilled and talented.
- Black and Nerdy: From Xavier Woods' playing the Final Fantasy victory theme on his trombone and making jokes about giving his teammates combat buffs with music to the team as a whole showing up to WrestleMania 32 wearing Saiyan armor, the evidence is all there.
- Boisterous Bruiser: All three come in with an incredible amount of positive energy, and are basically all about kicking ass and having fun.
- Breakout Character: One of the hugely popular Power Stables in WWE history. Not bad when one considers their gimmick started as preachy heels.
- Bullying a Dragon: They gradually began doing this to Bray Wyatt and The Wyatt Family, of all people, clashing with them due to how each other's gimmicks run contrary to the other's (the New Day spreads positivity, the Wyatt Family spreads fear).
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Every couple of months there seems to be a team that comes around that seems to think that their penchant for goofiness and comedy makes them pushovers. This assumption usually proves to be a terrible mistake.
- Call-Back: During their "New Day-lorean" skit, Kofi temporarily reverts back to his Jamaican gimmick before being pulled back by Xavier. The skit was part of their feud with The Vaudevillains; they intended to go to "a bygone era" but the first jump only managed seven years.
- Catchphrase:
- New [Beat] Day Rocks! New [Beat] Day Rocks!
- (hashtag) Booty!
- We are the... *gyrating their hips* W. W. E. World. Tag. Team. CHAMPIONS!
- Shame!
- Who?! WHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWHOWHO?!
- Booty-O's! They make sure you ain't booty!
- Bay-bee! (usually said by Kofi)
- Ayyy, we want some New Day!
- Oh no!
- NAAAAAATTTHHHHHIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGGG!!!
- Cheap Heat: Have this down to an art form, finding new and creative ways to insult the local sports team everywhere they go.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Originally, it was pretty much all they did. They still do it, however.
- Comic Trio: One of WWE's most famous examples. Their gimmick about being over-the-top fun naturally leads to funny moments.
- Cool Versus Awesome: Survivor Series '2017 starts with these guys fighting The Shield. Needless to say, it was one of the best matches of the night.
- Curse Cut Short: On the November 23, 2015 episode of Raw during the "Country Music Jamboree" celebrating their one year anniversary, Big E said "YIPPIE KI YAY, MOTHER-".
- Dance Party Ending: Almost every match the New Day wins ends with this. If they win a title, it gets taken to the next level.
- Distaff Counterpart:
- If social media is any indication, Team B.A.D. (Sasha Banks, Naomi, and Tamina) are this in real life. This briefly crept into their storyline characterization before the 2015 Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view, before being quickly dropped. They do seem to retain a friendship behind the scenes, though.
- In the summer of 2016, with Tamina injured, Naomi on SmackDown, and Sasha out for injury recovery and her honeymoon, the team found another female friend in the debuting Bayley, who had retained a similar gimmick of positivity for an even longer period of time.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: They were not a comedy act during their first year together as described up above, being more of a Southern gospel choir motif.
- End of an Era: The 2020 Draft officially split the group in 2 different brands, with Kofi and Xavier going to Raw, but placing Big E to SmackDown. This will be the first change in the group after 6 years. All 3 men bid their farewells before moving forward to their assigned brand.
- Evil Is Hammy: Very much so in their case when heels. Of course, everything they do is hammy.
- Friendly Enemy: In real life, The Elite (Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks).
- Foreshadowing: During the first interview with Renee Young that hinted that they were getting tired of the fans chanting "New... Day Sucks!" at them, Kofi said "we clap... or we snap." no one took them seriously at the time because of the gimmick. And then October 5, 2015 happened, when they gave a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Dolph Ziggler, John Cena and The Dudley Boys, with the show ending with the New Day standing tall over a huge fan favorite, the face of the company, and two legends, respectively.
- Groin Attack: Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson once took Big E out of commission for several weeks by yanking him nads-first into a ring post. Resulting funny vignettes by Gallows and Anderson aside, it also had a strategic element, as it forced Kofi and Woods to defend the titles. The two don't wrestle together very often in title defenses (usually it's Big E and Kofi, or sometimes Big E and Woods) and the team also loses their biggest, physically strongest member. Bad timing when you're being opposed by a 300-pound monster like Luke Gallows.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Much like The Rock, The New Day are an example of this actually working out. Their original "Gospel" gimmick failed to get them over, with the fans booing them. The New Day took the heat and turned heel, turning up their hamminess in the process. This made them too funny to hate, so the crowds started cheering the New Day instead. The team turned face again while keeping the new gimmick, and it stuck.
- Hidden Depths: People will often forget that the wacky troll blowing his trombone (and his ability to actually play recognizable tunes on it is another example) has, somewhere during his lengthy wrestling career, also found the time to earn 2 bachelor's and one master's degree, and is not far away from a PhD in psychology. And he's not even 30 yet.
- History Repeats: Both times a member of New Day won the WWE Championship, they dropped their title to Brock Lesnar. Following their loss, they did not receive any rematches and return to the tag team division.
- Homage:
- Their announcement as WrestleMania 33 hosts have Big E, Xavier and Kofi coming down as Kama, Papa Shango and The Godfather.
- On the 2018 Halloween episode of Smackdown, they came dressed as Gangrel (Big E), Edge (Xavier) and Christian (Kofi), complete with The Brood's theme and entrance.
- I Call It "Vera": Xavier named his trombone Francesca.
- Incoming Ham: Their introduction, which Big E shouts at the top of his lungs through a microphone. AWWWWWWWWW (NAME OF CITY)!!
- Insistent Terminology: The titles they hold as a team are referred to as the "W. W. E. World. Tag. Team. Championships". Even when the titles they're holding are the Raw or SmackDown Tag Team Titles.
- Joke Character: Seemed to start out as this as they weren't really taken seriously.
- Keet: Xavier mostly fills this role but the entire team falls into this at some points.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After Kingston and Woods got RKO'd by Randy Orton, who was blowing off steam after Seth Rollins banned his signature finisher at Rollins and Orton's 2015 Extreme Rules match, Big E (not at first) realized this trope at not wanting be a third victim, backing up toward backstage saying "I'm good, I'm good".
- Large Ham: All three of them are ridiculously hammy.
- Lethal Joke Character: Ever since turning heel they seem to have evolved into this. Best demonstrated at the end of the October 5, 2015 edition of Raw. In the course of about 15 minutes, they beat down Dolph Ziggler before he could answer John Cena's United States Championship Open Challenge. Proceeded to have Big E answer said challenge, then when E failed to win the title, proceeded to beat the hell out of Cena. When Ziggler came out to help, they beat him up too. Finally when The Dudley Boys came out to help, they proceeded to lay waste to all four of them. The show ended with the New Day standing tall over 2 legends, a huge fan favorite and the face of the company. All while the crowd, Cena's hometown mind you, chanted "New...Day Rocks!" Needless to say, don't think anyone thinks they're jokes anymore.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Any three syllable substitution for their original catch phrase (see Catchphrase above), often targeted towards whoever they're setting up for a trolling or sucking up to, like Save [Beat] The Tables!, Ste... [Beat] pha-nie!, Seth [Beat] Rol-lins!, or A [Beat] Dou-ble!
- Motive Decay: At first, they were genuine babyfaces, focused on thinking positive and imploring their fans to do the same. Then, as the crowd turned on them, they went more and more cloudcuckoolander and eventually turned heel. By the end of 2015, they were three adults replacing random words with "booty," gyrating their hips, playing the trombone, and wearing plastic unicorn horns, all while giving the crowd a hard time. Best exemplified in their change of TitanTron which switched from their earlier gospel preacher gimmick to one filled with rainbows and unicorns. The only thing that they still have from the original gimmick is their gospel choir theme.
- Motor Mouth: Xavier Woods will not stop talking at ringside. You can hear him screaming for almost the entire time.
- Mundane Solution: A long-time question was how exactly do you turn two cruiserweights into credible heels without either relying on the trio's Big Guy and do so without racial stereotypes/a Nation of Domination Expy? Answer: make their obnoxiousness deliberate as Trolls ala Edge and Christian.
- My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: While the team must defend the Tag Team Championship every match under the "Freebird Rule", where any two members can put the title on the line, if it seems the match is lost, the third (generally Woods) can use the rules to their advantage: by getting the team disqualified in a losing effort, they forfeit the match, but retain the title.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Xavier seems to be the only one one not approaching the Wyatts with the New Day's usual brand of "positivity" and peppy humor, because he's smart enough to realize that the Wyatts aren't another team that simply wants to outdo New Day in the ring; they also want to break down the New Day spiritually and outright destroy them.
- After the Bludgeon Brothers attacked them and the Usos at Fastlane 2018, Big E was to team up with Jey Uso to avenge their respective teammates on the following episode of SmackDown. Still furious over the attack, Big E came into the ring without his usual speech.
- March '19 had them absolute somber during Kofi's painful Road to WrestleMania run, to the point that Xavier and Big E wanted to leave the WWE because of it.
- Phrase Catcher: New [Beat] Day Sucks! New [Beat] Day Sucks! Also courtesy of Bray Wyatt during the New Day vs. Wyatt Family feud: New [Beat] Day Falls! New [Beat] Day Falls!
- New! Day Rocks!
- Plucky Comic Relief: They are a comedy act, after all.
- Poke the Poodle: Big E was so offended that they didn't win the 2015 Slammy "Tag Team of the Year" award that he was ready to punish the fans by... spoiling a major plot development from The Force Awakens during a promo on Raw. The only thing that stopped him was finding out that Kofi hadn't seen it yet.
- Power Trio: Lampshaded by Big E in their interview with 2K where they roasted The Elite:"Best trio! Even in... JAPAN!" (big grin) "YES, I SAID IT! I SAID IT! Including JAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!"
- Psychopathic Manchild: Are constantly partying with pancakes, trombones, unicorns, etc. And will utterly Zerg Rush your ass if you ruin any of it.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "W. W. E. World. Tag. Team. CHAMPIONS!"
- Ricky Morton: Typically when Xavier Woods is in a match, while he's more than competent, he's also the smallest and least experienced (at least in WWE tenure) of the trio, so teams that face the New Day with him as one of the representatives tend to employ the strategy of isolating Woods from his corner and beating the crap out of him for ten minutes until he can escape and hot tag the larger Big E or the more experienced Kofi.
- The Rival: The Shield during the latter's second run, culminating in a suitably epic six-man tag match at the 2017 edition of Survivor Series. While the New Day lost, the match was excruciatingly close, and the Shield put them over in an online video right afterwards.
- Over the balance of their existence it's probably more accurate to say that their rivals are The Usos. Both have been the only real mainstays of the tag division over the late 2010s, both with several tag team title reigns on both brands to their credit, and any program featuring the two against one another has been protracted and consisted of several months worth of matches, each with seemingly higher stakes and brutality in comparison to the last.
- Shaking the Rump: They've been frequently gyrating their hips during their entrances and whenever they celebrate their wins. Big E specially really gets into it - which may make sense considering whom he worked for in the past.
- Shout-Out: Has its own page.
- The Bard: Xavier describes himself as this at Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2015
- To the Tune of...: The trombone made its debut in Brooklyn, where the New Day cut a promo to the tune of "New York, New York".
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Kofi Kingston, since before New Day he was a Face throughout his career.
- Troll: Post heel turn.
- True Companions: Seems to be the case not just with each other, but much of the locker room, especially those that came up around the same time as them. Notable features in their behind the scenes adventures, especially on Up, Up, Down, Down, are Heath Slater, Seth Rollins, Sasha Banks and Mikaze.
- Xavier taking the punishment for the whole team following his loss against Kenny Omega at the Street Fighter V E3 2018 series of best 5-out-of-9 exhibition matches is a sign of this. Also the fact that both Big E and Kofi accepted to be a part of it.
- Kofi's Road to WrestleMania of early March 2019 cements this. To ensure that Kofi makes it, Big E and Xavier go through a four tag-team gauntlet match and win.
- It's notable that in five years there hasn't been so much as a hint of dissension between the three. No revolving doors, and any absences have been strictly due to injury. That just doesn't happen in stables - particularly in WWE, where the tendency is to look for a breakout star within a team and split them off from the others. In fact, Xavier Woods and Big E were instrumental in securing Kofi's path to Wrestling/Wrestlemania glory. And Kofi in turn did not abandon the others when he won - he was just a part of the stable as champion as he had been before. And when he lost the WWE Championship, he immediately recovered by winning the tag titles (again!) with Big E weeks later.
- Wham Line: Or rather a lack of one. During the 2020 WWE Draft, both Kofi and Xavier Woods are going to RAW...but when the group realizes that Stephanie didn't state Big E's name, that's when it hits them: The New Day is being split.
- Zerg Rush: Their Unicorn Stampede signature move whenever they're all able to take part in a match. An opponent is whipped into their corner of the ring, where they're assaulted by a series of foot stomps. The legal man then tags out, restarting the usual five-count in the process, and their replacement then continues the stomping. It's the easiest and most convenient way for the New Day to triple-team an opponent as opposed to using double-team attacks such as the Midnight Hour.
BECAUSE... NEW! DAY ROCKS!
