Xavier Woods defends controversial aspects of New Day’s act, Owens changed his name, Lawler & Ross reunited, Jericho on Omega match

-New Day’s Xavier Woods says their pancake gimmick shouldn’t be seen in the context of the racist stereotype presentation of African-Americans and pancakes in literature and other pop culture in the 20th Century, something PWTorch senior columnist brought into the conversation with a column he wrote last month, titled Bruce Mitchell’s Black History Month, New Day, and Pancakes. In an interview with Alfonso Castilla of Newsday, Xavier defended their incorporation of pancakes into their act. He said it spawned from a lumberjack skit they did. “I said, ‘Well, if I’m a lumberjack, what do they eat? They eat flapjacks.’ It was hilarious. So, we said the next week, ‘Are we going to do pancakes? Yeah, sure. Why not?’ And that’s where the pancakes came from,” Woods said. “If there’s ever any source of contention or anything like that, I think that it’s a situation where you should take a look at yourself and think about how deep you are looking into something that’s not really there.” He added that all three New Day members are “very aware of how we present ourselves,” but also don’t want their typically inane antics dissected under a racial lens “simply because we are African-American males.” He said they want a blank slate and that doing otherwise is “doing nothing more than continuing to hold up the social constructs that we’re trying to break down.” FULL ARTICLE LINK

-Kevin Owens has changed his Twitter name back to Kevin Steen and @FightSteenFight in selling his firing on Smackdown on Tuesday night.

-Jerry Lawler said on his podcast this week he expected to be reunited again with Jim Ross to call the “Greatest Royal Rumble” event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at King Abdullah Sports City Stadium on Apr. 27. [CREDIT: ProWrestling.net]

-Chris Jericho talked up the impact and importance and novelty of his match earlier this year with Kenny Omega in a recent radio interview. “It was almost like a Mayweather-McGregor type of vibe of a match that nobody thought was going to happen, and then when it happened everyone was really, really surprised, and excited, etc. etc., and me included. That’s why I wanted to do it, because I knew that it might never be able to happen next month or next year. It wouldn’t have been able to happen last year. It was a very cool moment. It was a big surprise for wrestling fans world-wide, and it was a big success. It made millions of dollars for everyone involved, and that’s all you can ask for. You make sure that everybody had a great time, had a great experience, and everyone made some money, and that’s all that matters.” He also listed his Mount Rushmore of Pro Wrestling as a 16 year old and talked about utilizing social media to promote himself and his matches, which you can read at our sister site www.PWPodcasts.com.

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