Carmelo Hayes is living large as the reigning WWE United States Champion on the blue brand over at SmackDown.
While he is proud to defend his first main roster singles title in open challenges on a weekly basis, the former NXT World Champion is also excited at the opportunity of getting to share the ring with 29 other WWE Superstars in the Royal Rumble for a chance in one of the coveted main event spots on "The Grandest Stage of Them All" at WrestleMania.
Featured below are some of the highlights from a recent Carmelo Hayes interview with the Toronto Sun where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On the opportunity to be in the Royal Rumble: “The opportunity to be in the Rumble is same as every year. It’s a huge opportunity. I mean, you can make yourself a star. You don’t even got to win the Rumble half the time.” He pointed to the format itself as the great equalizer. “You can make yourself a star in however long you get that opportunity to be in there. Mix it up with different guys.”
On what separates the Royal Rumble match from any other match on WWE's annual calendar: "I think it’s a cool opportunity to see guys mixing up with guys that you’ve never seen before. There’s a lot of Raw guys that I’ve never got to really interact with. Add in the annual surprises, and the appeal becomes even stronger. All the surprises that they have, new guys coming in or old guys coming back, whatever it may be. I’m excited for the Royal Rumble."
Check out the complete Toronto Sun interview with Carmelo Hayes via the YouTube player embedded below.
