King Woods talks about all things match finishes, including the Dragon Ball Z inspiration on his highly-athletic solo finisher.
With Xavier Woods getting the biggest singles push of his career following the King of the Ring victory, there has never been so much emphasis put on his move set and more specifically, his finisher.
Of course, finishing moves are a huge part of a wrestler’s presentation, and speaking with Ryan Satin on the Out of Character podcast, Xavier Woods opened up about the many different finishing moves he uses whether for The New Day as a unit or just on his own in his singles career.
Firstly, he would say that the Midnight Hour is his favorite tandem finisher as that is the one that has scored the most victories. He would also jokingly say that his favorite team to use it against is The Usos because it likely meant that The New Day was about to win the Tag Team Championships again.
“The one that has won us the most matches, I'll go with Midnight Hour. That's definitely the one that has won us the most matches. For those that don't know, when it's E and myself, E picks him up for the finish, and me or Kofi will jump off the turnbuckle into a DDT, that's Midnight Hour. When it's me and Kofi, one of us will hit a backbreaker and the other will jump off the top and double stomp the person into hades. That's Day Break. The solo, where I tightrope down the ropes and coast-to-coast elbow drop my opponent into oblivion, that's the Limit Break.”
Continuing on, Xavier Woods would explain the Dragon Ball Z influence on his finishing move and discuss how the legendary anime series helped him during his time nursing an Achilles injury.
“I've called that Limit Break since I've done it, just no one has said it, so no one knows. Everything I did finishing move-wise was 'he's going up up and he's going down down,' it's fine, I'm still hitting guys and we're doing the thing, but that elbow drop is the Limit Break. You can add Limit Break elbow drop to it, if you'd like. It's terrifying every time I do it because I'm not a tightrope walking kind of person but when I'm in the air, I'm like, 'Ohhh, this looks so cool. I know it does.'
“That's why I have this King Kai tattoo from Dragon Ball Z on my bicep. When I got injured, I had to fight back to get into the ring again, just like when Goku sacrificed himself so Piccolo could shoot through Goku, so Goku passed on while he saved the earth, he had to travel down Snake Way to get to King Kai and when he was done with his training, he got the logo on the back of his gi showing that he now understood what his limits were and how and when to go past them and how to keep yourself safe. That's what this represents. I want to make sure people saw it when I was doing the elbow drop so they understand, 'here is the full story.' Every time I drop this elbow, there is a full story coming down on you. It's not a finishing move, it's my life that's about to go through your chest.”
Describing his most memorable times hitting the elbow drop, the first is, of course, his King of the Ring victory. However, he also names one of his favorite match finishes of all time where he and Kofi Kingston were able to take a page from The Bella Twins and fool a referee with a necessary switcheroo after Kofi Kingston was knocked out.
“One, King of the Ring. Clearly, obviously. The other one, I don't remember who we were wrestling, I just remember doing it and it being hilarious. Kofi got like knocked out and so I slid in the ring and pushed him out and rolled dude up in a small package and since we were wrapped so tight, the ref could only see my back. So he counted three and we got away with a twin switch. I slid out of the ring and put my jacket back on quick enough that the ref didn't see me put it on. It was so stupid [laughs]. You could see me running around the frontside, ripping my jacket off and throwing it around the pole because I knew that's where I was going to come out, sliding in, doing it, sliding out, putting the jacket back on so by the time the camera came back it just looked normal. We just really go away with this.”
Before he was released by WWE, Keith Lee also explained the Dragon Ball Z influence on his own finishing moves. You can read more about that here.
Up next for Xavier Woods is WWE Survivor Series where he will represent team SmackDown in a traditional Survivor Series Elimination Match, competing without his brethren in The New Day alongside him.
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