36-year-old WWE star fought against Vince McMahon's plan to turn him heel

Vince McMahon is infamous for some of his creative contributions in WWE, like Kofi Kingston dropping the world championship to Brock Lesnar in a bout that lasted just seven seconds. On that note, Vince made several pitches to split up The New Day, despite the trio not wanting an on-screen fracture.

Currently, both Kofi Kingston and Big E are sidelined due to injuries. Despite not being together as a trio for a year after E's career-threatening neck injury put him out of action, the company has no plans for The New Day to break up.

Per Fightful Select, the former WWE Chairman wanted Xavier Woods to turn on Kofi Kingston. This was back in 2021, when the 36-year-old became the 22nd winner of the King of the Ring tournament and briefly went by the name King Woods.

McMahon pitched the idea for the turn because "it's what a king would do," but Xavier Woods fought back against the idea. As it turns out, the pitch came from the boss after a decree from McMahon that Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods should not be referred to as The New Day without Big E present.

Ultimately, the decree, which lasted for a few weeks before the pitch, was lifted. The trio continued as a unit, retaining the name even with two members. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods recently held the NXT Tag Team Championship together.

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Former WWE Champion on Brock Lesnar burying Kofi Kingston

Bryan Danielson recently spoke to Cameron Hawkins of The Ringer, recalling KofiMania back in 2019 and how he played a major role in The New Day star's rise to the main event. Bryan went on to express his disappointment at how the title reign ended abruptly:

“To me, the whole thing [KofiMania] was magic,” Danielson explains. “And you look at the live events, like the number of shows that he did for WWE, the amount of TV time that he [Kingston] filled in every time, going out there and always having a positive attitude and all that kind of stuff. What a great human being, you know what I mean? Like I said, it was my favorite match. I think the whole thing was my favorite part of my WWE career. And conversely, the most demoralized I ever was was seeing him lose it to Brock Lesnar the way that he did.”

Kofi Kingston did not recover from the loss, moving back to the tag team scene. In a similar fashion, Big E's sole WWE Championship reign ended at the hands of Brock Lesnar, albeit in a great multi-man match, at the Day 1 premium live event last year.