Kofi Kingston was a guest on the Battleground podcast, where he spoke about the Up Up, Down Down episode where The New Day took on The Elite.

"We talk about working with The Elite all the time, having a six-man with The Elite. We kind of tested it a little bit when we played them at Street Fighter. That wasn't supposed to happen. We thought, at some point, it was going to get pulled. 'Wait a minute, we know who these guys are, you can't be socializing and acknowledging people from other universes,' but here we are. It's crazy and it's a great thing. The Royal Rumble, you always look to it to wonder who is going to come out. In the past, you assumed it was going to be someone who was in WWE in the past or WCW in the past, but now, for us to be openly crossing bridges and opening Forbidden Doors, it's really exciting."

"It's fitting that the first person announced was Mickie James. It's so Mickie to pop her head in and be like, 'Hey, I'm here.' I'm super excited for her. She's someone I've been pretty close with all over my career. She's taken me under her wing and been in this big sister role. I'm excited to see her as a human being because I haven't seen her in I don't know how long. It's wild. You never thought you would see someone from another promotion coming into our WWE Universe. It's really exciting and opens up a lot of doors, hopefully. We'll see what happens."