Xavier Woods On Claims That The New Day’s Pancake Infatuation Is A Racial Stereotype

The New Day’s Xavier Woods recently did an interview with Newsday to promote WWE’s recently released book entitled “The Book of Booty: Shake It. Love It. Never Be It.” In recent weeks The New Day has grown an infatuation with pancakes as they hand them out to fans at ringside during their entrance.

There has been some criticism that their pancake affiliation is a racial stereotype. Woods took the opportunity to shoot that down, saying it instead had to do with a Lumberjack Match they were in late last year:

“I said, ‘Well, if I’m a lumberjack, what do they eat? They eat flapjacks.’ It was hilarious. So, we said the next week, ‘Are we going to do pancakes? Yeah, sure. Why not?’ And that’s where the pancakes came from,” Woods said.

“If there’s ever any source of contention or anything like that, I think that it’s a situation where you should take a look at yourself and think about how deep you are looking into something that’s not really there.”

Woods also pointed out the he and his partners, Big E and Kofi Kingston, are “very aware of how we present ourselves,” but doesn’t want to have to suppress their witty personalities due to being under a racial lens “simply because we are African-American males.”:

“All we want is a blank slate,” Woods said. “And if people continue to refuse to give us one, then they’re doing nothing more than continuing to hold up the social constructs that we’re trying to break down.”