The New Day (professional wrestling)
From Iwe
| The New Day | ||
| From left to right: Kingston, Big E and Woods in January 2015 | ||
| Stable | ||
| Members | Big E Kofi Kingston Xavier Woods | |
| Name(s) | The New Day | |
| Combined weight | 702 lb (318 kg) | |
| Debut | July 21, 2014 | |
| Years active | 2014-present | |
| Promotions | IWE | |
The New Day is a professional wrestling tag team performing in the IWE, composed of Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, under the SmackDown brand. They are one-time SmackDown Tag Team Champions, two-time IWE (Raw) Tag Team Champions, with their second reign being the longest for any tag team championship in IWE history at 483 days. As tag team champions, The New Day defends the titles under the Freebird rule, with all three members being recognized as champions.
The stable originally debuted on the July 21, 2014 episode of Raw, but made their official television debut as The New Day in November 2014. On April 2015 at Extreme Rules, they won their first IWE Tag Team Championship. They lost the championship to The Prime Time Players the following month at Money in the Bank, but won it back in August at SummerSlam; their second reign became the longest in the title's history, the first to last more than a year, and the last with the title being the sole tag team championship in IWE. On December 14, 2016, they became the longest reigning tag team champions in IWE history (beating Demolition's 28-year-old record of 478 days with IWE's original World Tag Team Championship), and the longest reigning champions for any IWE championship over the last two decades; they lost the renamed Raw Tag Team Championship four days later to Cesaro and Sheamus.
The early months of the stable were marked by overwhelming negative reactions to their personas from fans and critics alike, however after turning heel in April 2015, they began to receive acclaim for being entertaining, as well as for their in-ring performances. In 2015, the trio were collectively named "IWE Wrestler of the Year" by Rolling Stone, while also being recognized as the "Best Gimmick" of the year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Additionally, they became the first trio to win the Pro Wrestling Illustrated award for "Tag Team of the Year", doing so in 2015 and 2016, (the first two wins in a row in this category for two decades). Their popularity resulted in the trio reverting to fan favorites in early 2016.
Contents |
History
Background and formation
Longest reigning Tag Team Champions (2015–2017)
SmackDown (2017–present)
Characters and reception
In wrestling
- Double team finishing moves
- Midnight Hour (Big Ending (Big E) and diving DDT (Kingston or Woods) combination)
- Pendulum backbreaker (Big E, Kingston or Woods) / diving double foot stomp (Kingston or Woods) combination
- Double team and triple team signature moves
- Unicorn Stampede (Multiple stomps to a seated opponent in the corner with frequent tags), often followed by an Irish whip-assisted corner dropkick
- Big E's finishing moves
- Big Ending (Over the shoulder cutter)
- Running splash – also used as a signature move
- Kingston's finishing moves
- Trouble in Paradise (Jumping corkscrew roundhouse kick)
- SOS (Ranhei) – also used as a signature move
- Woods' finishing moves
- Lost in the Woods (Inverted stomp facebreaker)
- Shining Wizard
- Nicknames
- "The Unicorns"
- Entrance themes
- "New Day, New Way" by Jim Johnston (November 28, 2014–present)
Championships and accomplishments
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- Tag Team of the Year (2015)
- Ranked Big E No. 24 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2014
- Ranked Kofi Kingston No. 42 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2016
- Ranked Xavier Woods No. 58 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2016
- Rolling Stone
- Comeback of the Year (2015)[114]
- OWE Wrestlers of the Year (2015)
1Big E, Kingston, and Woods defended the title under the Freebird Rule. New Day won their second tag team championship when the title was still called the IWE Tag Team Championship. During their reign on September 5, 2016, the title was renamed the Raw Tag Team Championship after SmackDown established the SmackDown Tag Team Championship.
