The New Day never caved into the pressure.

When The New Day first arrived on the scene back in 2014, there was a lot of pushback. Fans felt the trio was too cheesy and that the gimmick would be doomed from the start. Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods proved the naysayers wrong. Even as heels, The New Day act became well-liked among the WWE Universe. Eventually, the group turned face and became WWE’s most valuable team.

Some people have still expressed gripes over The New Day for not being serious enough. Big E appeared on Sam Roberts’ Notsam Wrestling Podcast to address the criticism.

“That’s a lesson I learned with The New Day because we have the same pressures to change, to be more serious, to fit in a certain mold, and we just didn’t want to. We simply were stubborn about it. We believed so much in our chemistry in the three of us and our talent. I was extremely fortunate and blessed to be with two other guys who I think are incredible on the mic, in the ring, who can do so many things even outside of wrestling, and are just tremendous human beings. That taught me a real lesson in this business that even though there is a certain formula or a certain mold, you can do things in a way that feel authentic, genuine, and unique to you because in my mind, we didn’t need another guy who comes out wearing all black who is brooding and comes out to heavy metal or scary dark things.”

The group’s decision to go against the grain has paid off. They’ve won tag team gold multiple times together. Kofi Kingston is a former WWE Champion under The New Day and Big E is the current WWE titleholder.

The trio was recently seen in action on the Sept. 20 edition of Monday Night Raw. They fell short against Roman Reigns and The Bloodline. Later that night, Big E lost a triple threat match involving Reigns and Bobby Lashley.