WWE News: ‘Road Warrior’ Animal on why The New Day are special, The Ascension being compared to him and Hawk

The Road Warriors enjoyed great success in the WWE

What’s the story?

In a recent interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, WWE Hall of Famer Road Warrior Animal spoke about why he feels The New Day are a phenomenal tag team. In addition, he also responded to comparisons made between The Road Warriors and former NXT tag team champions, The Ascension.

In case you didn’t know…

The Road Warriors, who were also known as Legion of Doom, are considered to be one of the greatest tag teams ever in the WWE. Across their multiple runs in the company, they managed to capture the tag team titles on three occasions. While the pairing of Animal and Hawk were two-time champions, Animal teamed up with another former WWE star Heidenreich (following Hawk’s death in 2003) under the same team name to clinch the title for a third time in 2005.

The heart of the matter

During his conversation with Barrasso, the 56-year old admitted that he loves The New Day and feels that Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods are all very talented wrestlers. According to him, the only tag team other than them which has the potential to achieve greatness is SmackDown Tag Team Champions, American Alpha. Here’s what he had to say:

“I’ll admit it, I love those guys. I helped train Big E for a couple weeks in Tampa. I know those three and they’re all really good guys and very talented. People believe in them, and American Alpha is the only other team with a chance to be great.”

Road Warrior Animal opined that chemistry plays a very important part in building tag teams and made reference to the fact that he and Hawk knew each other for a long time. The New Day appear to have that chemistry with each other which is why he thinks that they are such a great team. Animal was quoted as saying this:

“For tag teams, you can’t just throw two guys together and call them a team. Hawk and I knew each other for years, we bounced in bars together. People love chemistry. That’s why the Four Horsemen were so great, and The New Day has that and that is part of the reason why they are so phenomenal.”

The iconic tag team superstar also expressed his disgust at the idea of The Ascension trying to emulate The Road Warriors and said that it was a stupid one. Animal was of the view that they should not even have mentioned the legendary team in their promo as it was bound to backfire. He stated:

“To take two guys out of NXT and try to emulate the Road Warriors was stupid. It was set up to fail from the beginning. The fans see through everything, and they saw through that right away. They never should have even mentioned us in their promo, because it backfired and they were booed. The wrestling fans sniffed this right out.”

Sportskeeda’s Take

Such high praise from one of the great tag team wrestlers of all time certainly goes to show that The New Day have done some really good work over the past couple of years. However, it would help if the WWE can give a little more scope to the trio in terms of their singles careers as well.


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