Big E: The Original Pitch For New Day Featured Abraham Washington And Byron Saxton, And We Were Called ‘The Clan’

The New Day hit television screens in 2014 with Xavier Woods recruiting Big E and Kofi Kingston, who were struggling to pick up wins.

When the group debuted at the end of the year, they were motivational speakers. It didn’t work, and they appeared dead in the water.

Over the course of ten years, the trio adapted by leaning into pop culture, jokes, and annoyance to become one of the most popular groups in wrestling history.

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Big E revealed the original look and talks of the group, which started in FCW.

“So the original pitch was for us to be the new Nation of Domination. So it was me. I don’t know if you remember Abraham Washington. So Abe Washington had a talk show on WWECW where Tony Atlas was his sidekick. All he would do was just laugh from time to time. But I’m telling you, people didn’t get to see the best of Abe. Abe is one of the best talkers I’ve ever been around. He would come into FCW, and he would cut these promos for Dusty. We would usually have these hard outs. You have a minute, maybe give you a minute and a half. Alex Riley and Abe Washington were the two guys who had an exception to just go. People didn’t get to see the best of Alex Riley as a promo, either. Dude was just incredible on the mic, but Abe was also just a masterful talker.

“So we were in FCW, it was me, Byron Saxton was still an active wrestler at the time. It was me, Saxton, Woods, and Abe. We all talked, but Abe was kind of positioned as the leader, and we had this group, and Abe was very much someone who unfortunately liked to push the envelope a little bit too much. I’m not going to talk about the reason he got fired, you could look that up. But he’s someone who always liked to kind of to put his foot over the line and see how far we could push things. We originally called the group the Clan, and it stood for Citizens Liberation of American Nationalism. It was supposed to be this militant black group, much in the vein of the Nation of Domination. We all grew up loving The Nation, and we wanted to do something in that vein. That group initially, it was initially the Clan, then we became The Plan, because the office said we’re not doing that. So we exchanged citizens for people, so that was it. We came out in white and red, so that very first suit that you see Woods come out in, that was like his old stuff from when we were pitching The Plan in FCW, so we never got to do that on FCW TV. We did a few weeks of that, and then eventually the office in FCW said it’s dead, you guys can’t do this anymore, move on.”

Big E continued, recounting how he and Woods felt dead in the water on the main roster, and that Kofi was looking for something different.

Woods pitched the new Nation idea, which was laughed at according to Big E, but they eventually got to do pre-tapes as motivational speakers….and the rest became history.

Elsewhere during the interview, Big E reflected on his WWE Title run. You can find his full comments here.