The two-time North American Champion is locked in on NXT.
Carmelo Hayes is headed into his second full year of being a member of WWE’s NXT roster. Since joining the company, Hayes won the NXT Breakout tournament, the North American Title twice and as of this writing, he’s the last person to be Cruiserweight Champion in WWE.
As Hayes was talking to Stephanie Chase, the topic of a main roster call-up came up. He sees and hears the talk about people wanting him to be on either Raw or SmackDown but he does not want to be fast-tracked.
He’s enjoying what he’s doing and still wants to be NXT Champion. Carmelo added that if the call-up were to come, then he’ll be ready when it’s time to deal with that.
It’s weird [hearing all the main roster talk] because I feel like I want people to enjoy what I’m doing. I don’t want people to try and fast-track me, you know what I mean? Because that’s gonna be there when — it’s not going anywhere, main roster isn’t going anywhere but it’s great, people are excited, people want to see these certain matchups with me and guys on the main and I want ‘em. Trust me, if they said tomorrow, Melo, go to Raw, go to SmackDown, I’d be truly ready I feel. Like, hey, okay, let’s go. But I feel like I have unfinished business in NXT which is that NXT Championship. Just based off what I said earlier with that claim that I am the ‘A’ champion. I want to prove it. Give me that title so I can prove everything that I’ve been saying for the last year is true. So I’m not in a rush to get there but if they call me up tomorrow then that’s what it is and we’ll deal with that.
Continuing on that, Hayes said he has spoken to Shawn Michaels about the idea of a main roster call-up. Hayes told the NXT head that he is focused on being in NXT and is not thinking about the hype that surrounds his name.
I just stay focused with what’s coming up, with what’s going on here. I had that [main roster] conversation with Shawn [Michaels] where I pretty much said, ‘Hey, just so you know, my head is here, my heart is here. I’m not getting carried away’ because yeah, like you said, I see it every day. ‘Oh Melo, go to the main roster, go to the main roster’ but I wanted to reassure Shawn that, ‘Hey, my head is here. I’m not thinking, oh! Main roster. I’m thinking what are we doing here? What are we doing on NXT?’ Because I take pride in putting on for NXT. I take pride in being one of the top names in NXT so like I said, my heart, my feet, my everything is here right now in NXT.
This coming Tuesday’s NXT is going to be the first live episode of the show in several weeks. Carmelo is scheduled to be in singles action against Apollo Crews.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Stephanie Chase with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
