Carmelo Hayes has addressed the future of the WWE United States Championship open challenge on SmackDown, revealing that he’s keen to change how stars receive opportunities.
Ever since Sami Zayn defeated Solo Sikoa for the United States Title back on the August 29 episode of SmackDown, the championship has been defended almost every Friday via an open challenge.
While Zayn kickstarted the tradition, it has been continued by subsequent U.S. Champions Ilja Dragunov and Carmelo Hayes – the latter of which recently passed 60 days as champion.
Speaking with Good Karma Wrestling, Carmelo Hayes was asked who he’d like to see answer his open challenge next – which led to the Boston native teasing a change of approach for how new challengers are determined.
Stating that he wants to see WWE stars earn a title shot rather than simply “pull up” to SmackDown each week, Hayes said:
“There’s guys that I wanna wrestle in general. As far as who wants to answer the open challenge, I wanna bring, I know people have been saying about storylines, I do want to bring storylines back.
“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. Cause I didn’t get it, 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 bring that back.
But as far as who I want to (answer the open challenge), I’m not gonna name any names. I’m pretty open to whoever, there’s guys I want to wrestle but whoever steps up in the open challenge it is what it is.”
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While Hayes attempted to defend his title against Ilja Dragunov on the February 13 episode of SmackDown, the potential match was interrupted by Solo Sikoa and The MFTs.
This leaves Hayes without a United States Title defense in February, as his last title match came against Rey Fenix on the January 30 episode of SmackDown.
Rather than defending his U.S. Title on the February 20 episode of SmackDown, Hayes will compete in a three-way Elimination Chamber qualifying match alongside former NXT teammate Trick Williams and Damian Priest.
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