Big E backs Xavier Woods as a singles star, reveals New Day never planned to be a tag team [Exclusive]
Big E revealed that Xavier Woods wants to follow in he and Kofi Kingston's footsteps to become a singles competitor in WWE.
Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods have comprised The New Day, one of the company’s best tag teams, for much of the past decade.
However, Kingston achieved singles success when he won the WWE Championship last year at WrestleMania 35. The hugely popular star accomplished his dream after an 11-year wait during this memorable run. Big E is now on the road to singles stardom, as well. On SmackDown, he will have to ‘go it alone’ with Woods and Kingston out with injury.
In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda, Big E revealed that he wants Woods to get a similar share of that limelight soon.
Big E says Xavier Woods deserves his shot as a single star in future.
He admitted his New Day partner is far better than much of their tag team run has earned him credit for. He’s confident Woods will be able to shine.
He said:
“He’s so good at the entertainment stuff, the promo stuff, that for the first several months of the New Day once we’d done the vignettes and were out on our own, Vince just liked him with the trombone and being on the floor, and being so entertaining. So much so that it was just me and Kofi doing the [matches], and Woods sunk into this manager or valet role when that was never the intention.”
Big E backs Xavier Woods to succeed as a singles competitor, revealing he’s always known how good he is as an in-ring performer – even if others aren’t quite so quick to remember.
He added:
“You know him for that stuff that you forget he can go! He had a singles match with AJ Styles years ago and I was just so proud watching him kill it. I knew he could do it and I knew he was that good, but people sometimes forget.”
Big E and I went on to discuss the fact that The New Day is now so heavily enshrined in tag team history, having racked up an impressive number of title runs. They undoubtedly still having plenty left in the tank.
The star, formerly known as Big E Langston, insisted again as all three members of the group have made previously that there’s simply no need for The New Day to break up. There's seemingly even less of a chance that’ll happen.
Instead, he revealed that the trio never actually saw themselves as a tag team, even though that's how they’ll be remembered.
Nonetheless, he still backed Woods to shine on an individual basis. He also hinted that his recovery from a long-term injury is going well.
He went on to say:
“Being kind of pushed into this tag team role wasn’t something we necessarily envisaged – we just thought we’d be a faction – and we really embraced it. I love tag team wrestling, but I often think that you often forget that we can all be singles wrestlers, and all accomplish a lot. I know from talking to him that he has some aspirations of doing some singles stuff as well. He’s coming off the Achilles [injury] but I know he’s feeling much better and moving around. I wish the best for him as a singles competitor.”
Thanks to WWE and Big E for their time during this interview. Visit Sportskeeda for more news and updated on Big E and Friday Night SmackDown, and follow me on Twitter @MattyPaddock for more exclusive interviews from the world of professional wrestling.