When Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson challenged the New Day for the tag titles, the story should have written itself:
At Summerslam 2016, the New Day would be champions for 364 straight days. The only team stopping them from a full-year title reign was Gallows and Anderson.
But instead of going the easy route for selling fans on their pay-per-view, WWE took a chance on testes galore.
Drs. Gallows and Anderson, Urologists
The full-on ball blitz began on Raw that month. After beating down the New Day, Gallows and Anderson delivered their coup de grace, splitting Big E down the middle on the ring post.
“You like that!?” yelled Luke Gallows repeatedly. “You like that!?” This was actually a trick question, and Big E was wise not to answer.
While any normal heels would simply brag about their dastardly deed, Gallows and Anderson took it one diabolical step further: Prop comedy.
Dressed as doctors, Gallows and Anderson delivered a PSA about ringpostitis, with a script just chock full of balls.
The skit’s centerpiece was a jar of generously-sized testicles they’d extracted from Big E’s scrotum.
But between the eggs and the lab coats, WWE had invested far too much into this sketch for it to be a one-off. Thus, Gallows and Anderson delivered a Part Two the next week.
This time, they represented the Gallows Organization for Nether-Area Diseases, which spelled — of course — balls.
Still seeking a cure for ringpostitis, they analyzed one of Big E’s supposed testes by putting it in a microwave. I’m not sure what purpose this could serve, other than to see the eggs explode in there…
…but since their microwave had a dark tinted window, they couldn’t even get the money shot!
Opening the oven to find their “research” ruined, Gallows and Anderson resolved to collect more “samples” at Summerslam. New Day understood what this thinly-veiled threat really meant:
More ball jokes. Truly, the lowest form of humor.
Making matters worse, WWE gave New Day’s testicles a celebrity rub.
With Jon Stewart on hand at Summerslam, WWE could have focused media attention on any match or angle…
…and they chose Ball Collectors, MD.
That night, Gallows and Anderson came prepared for a celebrity testicle harvest.
When the ball doctors tried to give Jon Stewart ringpostitis, tragedy struck: Big E caused a disqualification, meaning the feud continued.
At least there would be no more doctor skits — having retired from the medical practice, Gallows and Anderson announced their new vocation: senior living.
The Old Day
At Clash of Champions, said Gallows and Anderson, they would “retire” the New Day’s title reign. And as long as New Day were retiring, they might as well live in Gallows and Anderson’s retirement home:
The “Octogenarian Leisure Destination For Aging Rehabilitation Treatment”.
Having learned their lesson from the GONAD joke nobody got (or, if they did get it, didn’t laugh at*)…
…WWE pulled out all the stops to make sure you caught The Club’s next acronym joke.
If you couldn’t spell, they put the name on screen.
If you couldn’t see, they used a new bold font the next week.
If you couldn’t read — well, you were probably just young and/or dumb enough to laugh at the joke. So Gallows explained it aloud.
The retirement home even had an on-site nurse. Sure enough, Dana Brooke came out in scrubs and a single glove to do…
…I don’t know, something with the butt.
The plot thickened the following week. It seemed Gallows and Anderson not only ran a retirement home, they also had a time machine…
…which they used to bring the New Day back from the future. Sure, the premise was doubly- or triply-contrived, but WWE deemed it a small price to pay for jokes about poop and peepee.
Unsurprisingly, the sketch died before the Old Day even stepped through the curtain. Yet it wouldn’t even start in earnest until the seniors had sloooowly wheeled all the way down the ramp.
The Club’s swipes at Future Big E’s incontinence gave new meaning to the phrase, “too soon”. Hopefully, Big E set a reminder on his phone to get offended in fifty years.
And if Xavier’s “trombone” had shrunk to a mere piccolo in his old age, what did that say about the size of his big tenor in 2016?
Gallows and Anderson couldn’t even find real old people!
The skit would have made at least a bit of sense had it targeted a veteran team like the Dudley Boyz…
…but Gallows was actually older than Big E and Xavier. Anderson was older than all of them.
After enduring more than five minutes of insults about how old they’d be (if they were old), the real New Day intervened…
…laying out the Old Day after an ill-advised cane attack.
The sketch was so poorly-received, the New Day came out the next week to publicly bury Old Day as a waste of time. They even claimed to have destroyed all footage…
…though in reality it’s still posted (in “highlights”) on WWE’s Youtube channel.
At least WWE learned their lesson. The night after the Old Day sketch bombed, they bumped their Slater family sketch to a Smackdown pre-tape.
But when that segment miraculously turned out pretty funny, WWE abandoned their safety net and never looked back.