Xavier Woods says The New Day deserves a blank slate.

A long time ago, there was a book called Little Black Sambo which featured a racist caricature of an African-American child who enjoyed pancakes. Some wrestling fans and personalities have mentioned The New Day bringing pancakes to the ring and how it could relate to the old racist character. Xavier Woods refuted that claim in an interview with News Day where he said The New Day created the pancake idea for one match and rolled with it after that.

“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," said Woods.

Anyone who sees the inclusion of pancakes as racist is looking to deeply into the New Day according to Woods. He said he and his tag team partners are looking to be themselves outside of pre-constructed notions.

“All we want is a blank slate. And if people continue to refuse to give us one, then they’re doing nothing more than continuing to hold up the social constructs that we’re trying to break down. The stuff that we do really isn’t that deep,” said Woods.

Also in the interview, Woods talked about the book New Day recently published. Woods, Kofi Kingston, and Big E have been feuding with The Usos but neither team has a match at Wrestlemania 34 yet.

The full interview is available at NewsDay.com.