Vince McMahon Reportedly Made Several Attempts To Break Up The New Day In WWE

It's not exactly a secret that Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods have strongly resisted any and all past efforts to break up The New Day.

"We've heard rumors in the past and had a conversation with a very important person who said, 'Alright, this is the idea,'" explained Big E in a May 2020 interview with the "My Mom's Basement" podcast (h/t Fightful for the transcription). "But we've been adamant about [not breaking up]. I get why fans want a breakup. It's something new. But if you look at the history of breakups, tell me one, besides The Shield — they were always designed to break into individual stars — I can't think of a single breakup that benefited all members."

Late Thursday afternoon, Fightful Select reported that Vince McMahon in particular — possibly the "very important person" mentioned by Big E in 2020 — had made multiple attempts to break up The New Day. Specifically, even before the team's injury woes of late, first with Big E's broken neck and then with Kingston's recent ankle injury, McMahon "made repeated attempts" to split them up. Two particular instances were mentioned: A brief initiative to not refer to Woods and Kofi as "The New Day" if Big E wasn't with them, as well as Woods, having recently won the King of the Ring tournament, turning on Kingston. McMahon's reason for the latter was that "it's what a king would do," and Woods successfully fought back against it.

The Fightful Select report also added that the catalyst for some of this coming out when it did was former WWE writer Dave Schilling tweeting earlier in the day about McMahon's defiant reaction to the fan base rejecting the choice of Baron Corbin as Kurt Angle's opponent in his retirement match at WrestleMania 35.