Grayson Waller said his run alongside The New Day put him in a contradictory position backstage. He was told to be more serious, but he kept getting placed in comedic segments with Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods.
Speaking on Busted Open, Waller made clear he doesn’t blame his former partners. The pairing began on July 21, 2025, when he appeared on Raw and introduced himself to The New Day as “Big G.”
“My advice was always was ‘We want you to be serious, we need you to be serious. I’m like ‘Yes, let me be serious.’
‘You’re with the New Day.’ ‘Great, I love the New Day.’ I can’t explain how much those guys did for me. I got all the respect in the world for them, so I never want people to think I’m being derogatory towards them at all.
Like, what a chance to work with one of the best tag teams of all time. But we’re out there wearing silly hats, we’re mucking around, joking. I can’t be serious.”
Waller said the nature of those segments meant he could never show creative the version of himself that WWE kept saying they wanted.
“I never got to show them who I am. No one is in the wrong. I didn’t do the wrong thing, they didn’t do the wrong thing. They didn’t see what they want, I didn’t give them what they want. That’s just realistically how the business works, sometimes the ships sail a different way.
But now I’m in NXT I’m getting to show them who I am. I am serious, this isn’t a joke to me. This means something and I think this will open a lot of people’s eyes who didn’t have them open before.”
That chance finally came. Waller returned to NXT on the July 28 episode and went on to capture the NXT Championship at Heatwave on August 30.
On the same day, Kofi and Austin Creed debuted in AEW as The New Level, winning the AEW World Trios Championship alongside Swerve Strickland at All In: London.