WWE pitched an awfully stupid gimmick for Big E early in his career
WWE superstar Big E has become one of the best tag team wrestlers on the planet and is a future Hall of Famer as part of The New Day, but he was nearly given a bizarre gimmick involving a circus trick.
The New Day have a new podcast out appropriately titled “Feel The Power”, and the man who yells that catchphrase immediately before entering the ring every week, Big E, had an interesting story to tell on the first episode of this awesome new pod. (Not to be confused with the Pod of Awesomeness.)
Early in Big E’s main roster career – before the dawn of a new day – he shared a story about how WWE thought he was “boring”. And like, imagine thinking that Big E, who is literally the most hilarious person in the company and a record-breaking powerlifter, is boring.
But that’s what WWE thought. Their brilliant solution? Turn him into a juggler. Yikes. Big yikes.
Here’s WrestleTalk’s Louis Dangoor with the quote:
"“It’s wild to me how all the pieces came together separately [to form The New Day] because at the time I was from producers that The Office thought that I was boring. That’s something that they wanted me to try — at one point one of the producers told me, ‘Hey, can you juggle?’ They legit wanted me to juggle I suppose have a match and bust out some juggling.”"
Um, what?
Big E ended up doing wayyyy more interesting things than juggling on WWE television, which is an idiotic idea even by WWE producer standards. E won the Intercontinental Championship near the end of his singles run, and he’s now a seven-time tag team champion with The New Day. The trio currently holds the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, too.
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While Big E can certainly make any gimmick work due to his natural ability, juggling during a match? Ridiculous. Plus, anything that distracts from E’s awesome wrestling ability, which is more than his sick power moves, is not a good idea. The man is incredible, and if WWE were to flip the switch on a singles run for him in addition to his work with The New Day, he would undoubtedly flourish. He is a national treasure.