Carmelo Hayes discusses a controversial moment that happened earlier this year.
At WWE Clash At The Castle, Solo Sikoa made his debut on WWE's main roster. This move was highly anticipated by many fans around the world of wrestling who thought that Sikoa would fit in well with The Bloodline. Although a main roster call up will usually signal the end of a performer's time in NXT, that wasn't the case for Sikoa. Only a week after making his main roster debut alongside The Bloodline, Sikoa defeated Carmelo Hayes to capture the NXT North American Championship on a episode of NXT 2.0.
Strangely, Sikoa was forced to relinquish the title only a week after winning it. This move left many fans asking why Hayes lost the belt in the first place, as he is usually well received by the audience.
In a new exclusive interview with Fightful, Hayes commented on the situation by noting that he just took it as another challenge for him to overcome.
"I took the challenge on it. I said, ‘Okay,’ because it’s out of my control. At that point, it’s like, I’m not going to fight Shawn Michaels for this title. ‘Hey, give it to me. Come on.’ It was a challenge that I was looking at like, ‘Okay, if I have to prove it again. If I have to prove five times that I’m the man, I’ll prove it five times.’ That’s always my mindset. They keep throwing things at me to see if I’m going to miss, and I looked at this as another one of those. ‘Okay, you want to take my title and you want make me try...’ I didn’t win it back, so I guess I did miss. At the same time, ‘You want to put me in a ladder match, you want me to show out and get my title back, alright, that’s what we’re going to do.’"
After being vacated, the NXT North American Title was put up for grabs in a five way Ladder match at Halloween Havoc in October. Although Hayes was a participant that match, Wes Lee would go on to win the match.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hayes discussed his recent appearance on Main Event. To learn more, click here.
