wrestling / News

Xavier Woods Discusses Performing In Front of 100,000 Fans at WrestleMania, His Favorite Anime Character, More

April 8, 2016 | Posted by Larry Csonka
WWE New Day WrestleMania 32, Big E

-Xavier Woods recently spoke with IGn, here are the highlights…

On Performing In Front of 100,000 Fans: It’s pretty amazing because when you’re a kid and you want to be a pro wrestler, you think about WrestleMania. It’s like the pinnacle of everything. So you think, that’s the stage I want to be on, I want to have matches there. I want to have fans cheering for me or booing for me or whatever. But it’s not something you can really prepare for mentally because it’s such a large thing. It’s a spectacle. It’s a rock show. There’s lights. There’s fireworks. There’s action. And you’re wrestling in front of 100,000 people. So it’s essentially the gauge telling me that I haven’t wasted 29 years of my life on something that I wasn’t good at. [laughs]

On How Long it Took to Make New Day’s WM 32 Outfits: Two months, I think? I do a bunch of cosplay stuff with a guy by the name of Michael Mosley. He’s fantastic. We always go to an event called DragonCon together every September. And so, I was talking with him about it, and he’s got a business called Heroes for Hire where he makes costumes for people who do kid’s parties and stuff, and he was stacked with stuff so he couldn’t make it. So I went to my buddy Adam Roberts at Main Event Gear. He makes wrestling gear for me, Kofi and E. And I showed him the pictures [of DBZ characters] and was like “hey, you think you can make this?” And he goes “I can definitely try!” And that was the finished product. And I think he knocked it out of the park. It was awesome.

What Is His Favorite Anime Character?: That’s a hard question! Probably…I think right now Kuroko. Because I very much like the whole Japanese culture–it’s different from American culture. I feel like there wouldn’t be an American cartoon where the main character is essentially in the background. Where he’s an auxiliary player. If the cartoon was an American cartoon, then the guy with the red hair would have been the main character. It’s more about working with the team. It’s not about the individual, and the fact that he’s very useful and he’s not the one scoring points. He’s helping his team excel at something [and they] could never be without him…to me that’s amazing because it teaches kids a different mentality. It’s saying you don’t have to put all the load on your shoulders in whatever situation it is. You can ask for help and you have teammates there. Whether that’s in sports or whether it’s in life, or anything else. You have people around you that are there to help you. And they love you and care about you, and they all want everyone to do well. And so, the fact that he’s able to pull that message out of a cartoon about high school basketball is unreal to me. And so he’s probably my favorite characters-he’s probably the most inspirational character I’ve seen in a long time.