Carmelo Hayes Wants To Bring More Storylines Into The WWE United States Championship Picture

Championship opportunities should be earned, according to Carmelo Hayes.

Since winning the WWE United States Championship from Ilja Dragunov on December 19, Carmelo Hayes has continued to defend the title in a weekly open challenge on Friday Night SmackDown.

Hayes has ambitions beyond the open challenge, however, as he revealed in a new interview with Good Karma Wrestling that he wants to introduce more storylines into the United States Title picture to ensure each challenger earns their opportunity.

“To be honest, I think the open challenge is becoming a little bit more… I know people have been saying about storylines. I do want to bring storylines back ‘cause I do feel like there is a period where guys have to earn the opportunity to get a title shot. I don’t think guys should be able to pull up every Friday and just automatically get a title shot. Until the open challenge opened, I had to earn one and it took a lot. If you guys remember, I was battling Andrade freaking every week, just killing ourselves for an opportunity to get an opportunity. I’d like to bring that back.”

-Carmelo Hayes

So far, Carmelo Hayes has successfully defended the United States Championship against Johnny Gargano, Shinsuke Nakamura, Leon Slater, Ilja Draguno, and Rey Fenix.

Tama Tonga could be next in line after pinning Carmelo Hayes to secure the win for the MFTs in a ten man tag team match on last week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown.

Attention is now firmly on the Elimination Chamber, with Hayes set to face Trick Williams and Damian Priest in a qualifying match tomorrow night as they look to join Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, LA Knight, and Je’Von Evans in Chicago.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on future plans for Carmelo Hayes as soon as we hear more.

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