How WWE Ruined The New Day’s Historic Title Reign

WWE’s poor booking decisions prevented the New Day’s historic accomplishment from being bigger than it really was.

If you haven’t heard by now, the New Day are the longest-reigning tag team champions in WWE history. Their reign, which lasted from SummerSlam 2015 to Roadblock: End of the Line in late 2016, surpassed the record that had been held previously by Demolition.

The fact that any wrestler in today’s WWE managed to hold onto a championship for over a year should be a major accomplishment in itself. Yet somehow, WWE managed to screw things up for the New Day during the final six months of their reign, which took away from the accomplishment’s significance.

Let this retrospective serve as an example of what not to do when a wrestler/group is being booked for a lengthy title reign. There should always be more and more drama with each passing week, instead of the booking transitioning into a repetitive cycle through which one could easily see that the bookers are stalling for time.

During the first 365 days of the New Day’s title reign, they evolved from a tacky Black gospel trio that wouldn’t have gotten over at all, to one of the most popular acts in all of WWE. Even with a few hiccups along the way – including an inexplicable loss at WrestleMania 32 to what amounted to a jobber team – the trio was still popular and important in the company.

Yet by SummerSlam 2016, there were already signs that WWE’s creative team had no idea what to do with the New Day. They had already gone through virtually all teams on RAW and lacked fresh opponents for the champions. Worse, due to a continued creative rut, challenges were repetitive and the storylines surrounding them threadbare. Yet the bookers were determined to ensure that the New Day’s reign would break the historic record that had been set by Demolition decades earlier.

What WWE failed to do was create any real tension or drama to even suggest that Demolition’s record wouldn’t be beat. The New Day were a babyface team that steamrolled through their opponents with little difficulty. If you re-watch matches from back then, you’d see that the New Day won more often than not, especially against the duo of Gallows & Anderson.

Because of this seemingly unstoppable push to end break the existing record, WWE made sure the New Day kept winning and winning. But unlike the PPV name, they didn’t create any roadblocks for the trio.

As the New Day crept closer and closer to Demolition’s record, it became increasingly apparent that they were going to break it. But creatively, there was no force that was trying to stop them. The New Day’s opponents weren’t booked strongly enough to suggest that they could stop the trio, nor was there any authority figure trying to prevent them from winning.

It was as if everyone in WWE – both onscreen and behind the scenes – had accepted that the New Day were going to break the record and weren’t interested in putting in the creative effort to try and make it seem like the opposite would happen.

There are several things WWE could’ve done to make this historic accomplishment feel more important. The bookers could’ve written a storyline where the New Day had to wrestle with some kind of handicap to prove they really were strong champions. They could’ve been forced to wrestle gauntlet matches with every loss having some kind of serious consequences. Big E could’ve been forced to return to his 5-count gimmick from NXT, whereby if he were the one scoring the pinfall, he’d need a 5-count instead of a traditional 3-count to win.

They could’ve done injury angles closer to the imminent record-breaking day so build up the drama of whether or not the New Day could surpass the record. Finally, the WWE could’ve held a special match on the day of the record being broken (such as an ironman tag team match) to commemorate the moment.

Instead, everything was ‘business as usual’ with WWE, with the New Day’s own record barely being celebrated.

Think about it: if you had broken a decades-old record and became the longest-reigning champion of any kind, surely that would be cause for celebration, wouldn’t it? And not just a lengthy applause from the audience: we’re talking fireworks, confetti, champagne, and all of the babyfaces coming out to celebrate with the New Day to commemorate their big win.

These small details go a long way in telling a story in pro wrestling. If everyone was so proud of the New Day for beating Demolition’s record, why didn’t they show it? Why didn’t the top stars of the roster and the New Day’s friends come out and celebrate with them? Because WWE didn’t think something like this through to the end.

What was supposed to be a historic celebration went out with a whimper, especially following how the New Day lost their titles.

After the New Day broke Demolition’s record, the story should’ve shifted away from breaking an old record to them working even harder to set their own. It would’ve been the perfect moment to transition or tweak the New Day’s gimmick into a trio of more serious wrestlers, even for a short time.

As record-setting champions, the New Day could’ve had more exciting and dramatic matches for months going forward, with every championship match being much more important now that they were trying to set their own record.

But once again, the bookers didn’t see the simple storyline they had with this. Instead of writing a simple-yet-understandable storyline around the New Day working harder than ever to retain their titles against hungrier and more aggressive opponents, they booked the New Day to lose their titles less than a full week after they surpassed the old record.

When Cesaro & Sheamus ended the New Day’s record, it wasn’t presented as that big of a deal. Just as the New Day didn’t commemorate their record-breaking victory with any grandiose fanfare, neither did they show much despair when they lost their belts. All they did was offer solemn handshakes to the men that had defeated them, nothing more. There was no heel turn, no arguing with the referee, not even any signs of real emotion from the parts of the New Day.