Xavier Woods recently spoke with Sports Illustrated about how video games have brought the locker room together, the trombone, and his different hair styles. Here are the highlights.
On how video games have brought the locker room together:
“Every generation of guys has their thing that brings them together,” said Woods. “I’m very much about the camaraderie of what we do. When I got on the main roster [in 2013], I wanted to find something to bring us all together. We all love wrestling, and that’s a given, but we’re all from different places, and to find something else outside of work that brings us together and finds common ground is really nice. It may seem trivial, but to have everyone sitting in a room–and, like any job, there are guys who don’t like each other and some guys that love each other–cheering and freaking out over two guys playing Madden. Getting hyped with friends playing a game that you all enjoy is a lot of fun.”
On the trombone:
“The goal is always for it to not fall out of my head,” said Woods. “I’ve got it, so I may as well do something with it. I’m really liking doing stuff to it, and that gave me the idea to do something wild once a month at pay-per-views.”
On his different hair styles:
“I’m trying to use my psychology degree to understand the nuances of people that watch sports entertainment,” explained Woods. “I’m trying to do the same thing with my gaming channel, and figure out what wrestling fans would like, as well as what non-wrestling fans would like.
“Wrestling fans are going to watch wrestling, so the thing with my hair is a way to try to incorporate non-wrestling fans. Dads send us pictures with their daughters wearing New Day shirts, and the little girls don’t always love wrestling, but they say, ‘I love the unicorn guys!’ So they can bond over that. Giving people the opportunity to share a moment with their child they couldn’t do before is extremely meaningful to me.”
You can read the entire interview here.
