‘It Was Heartbreaking’ – Carmelo Hayes Shares Honest Feelings On WWE United States Title Loss Before WrestleMania 42

WWE

Carmelo Hayes has opened up about losing the WWE United States Championship to Sami Zayn just three weeks ahead of WrestleMania 42.

Along with long-time rival Ilja Dragunov, Carmelo Hayes helped breath new life into the mid-card on Friday Night SmackDown throughout his 98 day United States Championship run.

Melo’s over three months with the gold saw him successfully defend it eight times and frequently deliver match of the night performances against the likes of Dragunov, Shinsuke Nakamura, Rey Fenix and even stars from outside WWE such as AAA’s El Hijo de Dr. Wagner Jr. and TNA’s Leon Slater.

Unfortunately for Hayes and his fans however, WWE booked the Boston native to drop his title to Sami Zayn just three weeks before WrestleMania 42, which would then set Zayn up to defend the gold against Carmelo’s former NXT partner Trick Williams at “The Showcase of the Immortals.”

While he was booked in a US Title rematch with Zayn the following week, Hayes lost that match due to a storyline knee injury and was forced to sit out of WrestleMania for the second year running.

Speaking with Michael Fairman, Hayes said “it sucked” to have the US Title taken away from him, but he refused to have a “woe is me” attitude afterwards:

“I mean, it sucked. It definitely sucked and it was heartbreaking and it felt like I ran the race. I was so close to just throwing my arms up and crossing the finish line and then I got kind of sidestepped a little bit. Yeah it sucks…

“Listen I’m a pro. At the end of the day I’m a pro. I show up to work, what they need from me I do it and I go above and beyond no matter what every time. It’s one of those things, you got to charge it to the game. It wasn’t a personal thing right? It wasn’t a me thing. It was whatever it needed to be, whatever that was and whatnot.

“It’s not something that I’m going to sit here and go, ‘Oh, woe is me.’ I don’t move like that. I had a day or two where I was like, ‘What the hell?’ And then after that I was like, ‘Back to work man.’ Just a chip on my shoulder and watch what’s going to happen.”

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Further discussing his US Title run, Hayes said that the success of it was an example of what he can do in WWE if he’s “given the ball”:

“When you think about my journey on the main roster, where I had to kind of start low. I start high and then just all over the place and kind of get in where I fit in. And I finally found my footing, and really all it came down to was just them giving me the ball. That was it.

“All I needed was the ball and I just needed them to say, ‘Alright here, run.’ And that was what I did.

“I ran and nobody could catch me and they had to take the ball away from me. But that’s all I needed and that’s all I’ll ever need is just the and ball and the opportunity.”

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• wwe
• WrestleMania
• Sami Zayn
• Carmelo Hayes
• WrestleMania 42

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