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Though their run in NXT is officially over, and the tag team run is currently on hold as both Kofi Kingston and Big E recover from injuries, New Day are still leaving an impact on WWE developmental but not in the way one team, Pretty Deadly, would like.
Sitting down for an interview with Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald, Kit Wilson, and Elton Prince were asked about how it felt to have WWE veterans like Kingston and Xavier Woods come down to Orlando for a run in the black and gold brand, and unsurprisingly, the duo weren't too complimentary of the team who stole their NXT Tag Team Champions on the way to becoming triple crown tag team champions.
“The New Day came to NXT when they shouldn’t have and ruined our lives,” Wilson told Varsallone via Fightful.
“We had our babies, didn’t we? Our babies, we carried them for months and months. Then they just took it away. Took it away. Took our joy away, took our purpose away.”
“It’s been a downhill, downward spiral since,” Wilson agreed.
Now, to be fair, the Pretty duo are correct; Kingston and Woods did come down to NXT more or less to garner additional attention after being stuck firmly behind The Usos for the past 600-plus days. Though the only stuck around for a few months, the pancake-loving duo used their time to chew the scenery, wear some funny outfits, and ultimately steal Pretty Deadly's titles away from them. Fortunately, Wilson believes that maybe, just maybe, Kingston got what was coming to him for ruining Pretty Deadly's run by getting injured, even if that is a very weird thing to say.
“It’s been a real rough journey,” Prince said. “You know what hurts most? They know what they’ve done. There’s no remorse, there’s no regret, there’s no guilt. They’re off living their merry lives now. ‘Oh, let’s go down, ruin Pretty Deadly’s lives and then carry on as normal.”
“I’ll say this,” Wilson added. “Maybe Kofi, recently [got hurt], I don’t want to say it, but it’s karma.”
“Maybe,” Prince concluded.
Is it wrong to suggest that Kingston only suffered an injury because he hurt Pretty Deadly's run? Yes, even for a heel, that's one heck of a strange statement to make, especially since every time Woods has been asked about Pretty Deadly, he's been nothing but complementary, as he noted to ReviewSTL in an interview about WWE's recent running in Kansas City.
“I’ve been wanting to work with Pretty Deadly for a very long time,” Woods said via 411 Mania. “I think they’re very talented. I think they know who they are, which is one of the hardest things to figure out in professional wrestling, and so getting to work with them was great.”
Will New Day ever earn a chance to get back at the brash brits for their comments? Only time will tell, but considering Pretty Deadly has more or less accomplished everything a team can in NXT, it seems like they'll be getting their WWE call-ups in no time.
New Day's Xavier Woods compares the Road to Wrestlemania to.. hockey?
Elsewhere in his interview with ReviewSTL, Woods was asked about the road to WrestleMania 39 and compared it to NHL playoffs, which he is apparently a big fan of.
“I recently got into hockey, like a year or two ago, but I got into it because my friend showed me playoff hockey. I said, ‘Ohhhh. I like this!' I went to the All-Star game, and I was ready for it, and they weren't playing like that. Oh, it's because they're getting ready for the (Stanley) Cup. WrestleMania is our Cup,” Woods said. “This was, I want to say, two years ago. They're watching a game, they're explaining it to me, and then I saw somebody get checked into a wall. Four seconds later, I saw somebody get punched in the mouth. ‘Hold on, this is the Finals, right?' ‘No, this is Game 1 of the playoffs.' I almost fainted. ‘I love this.' Everyone wants to win. They're talking about how some people were on teams as kids back in the day together, some people are brothers. This is incredible. Hats off to all the incredible hockey players out there. Just watching it, that's a skill, to be able to do all that on ice.”
Huh, do you know what? While I was a little skeptical to compare wrestling to hockey, the former “King of WWE” actually brought it all together pretty well. Both sports have fist-throwing, technical proficiency, and passionate fans who love watching the product. If the Road to WrestleMania is the Stanley Cup Playoffs, then we're currently in the NHL Conference Finals.