WWE Rumors: ‘Monday Night Raw’ Veteran Was Once Supposed To Join The New Day, Big E Claims
For most of the past five years, The New Day – Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods – has been one of the most entertaining acts in recent WWE history. Despite numerous creative changes taking place in the company in recent years, the three-man stable has worked a similar gimmick and has stuck with the same members, and that doesn’t seem to have affected their popularity in a significant way. However, it was recently revealed that they nearly got a fourth member at one point – longtime Monday Night Raw mainstay Titus O’Neil.
As recapped by Sportskeeda on Tuesday, most of the latest episode of The New Day’s Feel the Power podcast saw Kingston, Big E, and Woods talk about the various names that WWE suggested for the trio when their faction was just forming. However, one of the more interesting things brought up on the episode was Big E’s claim that WWE officials wanted O’Neil – who is arguably best known as one-half of The Prime Time Players with Darren Young and the leader of the similarly defunct Titus Worldwide stable – to become the group’s fourth member.
“Speaking of, you know what I forgot? I forgot that at one point Titus was supposed to be part of our group,” said Big E, as quoted by Sportskeeda. “They tried to force him on us. We’ve got love for Titus – he’s our boy and whatnot – but we didn’t want Titus in our group.”
A second episode amuse-bouche. #NewDayPod pic.twitter.com/YT6HSTWUMG
— Ettore “Big E” Ewen (@WWEBigE) December 9, 2019
It wasn’t mentioned why The New Day specifically didn’t want O’Neil joining the faction. However, unlike the group’s three members, who have spent good parts of their WWE runs in the upper reaches of the mid-card, he hasn’t been quite as high on the pecking order. As shown on his ProFightDB wrestler page, the 42-year-old former Florida Gators football star spent most of 2019 wrestling on WWE Main Event – one of the company’s “B-shows,” despite its name. His last televised match came on the November 25 episode of Monday Night Raw, where he lost via disqualification to Bobby Lashley.
As for The New Day, both Kingston and Big E currently reign as SmackDown Tag Team Champions – thus making them seven-time tag titleholders across both of WWE’s main brands – and are scheduled to defend their titles against The Revival on Sunday at the TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs pay-per-view. But even with Woods still sidelined with an Achilles injury, it looks like WWE has no immediate plans of making any drastic changes to the faction, such as adding O’Neil — or any other new member.
