Current NXT Champion Is Furious That They're Not on the Worlds Collide Card
WWE's Worlds Collide event takes place this Sunday at the WWE Performance Center and will feature crossover matches between NXT and NXT UK before the latter shuts down and gets rebooted as NXT Europe next year. Only two matches have been confirmed for the show so far but they're both pretty significant — Bron Breakker and Tyle Bate will unify the NXT and NXT UK Championships while Mandy Rose, Meiko Satomura and Blair Davenport will compete for both the NXT and NXT UK Women's Championships. But there's another champion who is currently missing from the card and he's not thrilled about it.
Carmelo Hayes has already built up quite the resume for himself since debuting on NXT television in June 2021. He won the NXT Breakout Tournament two months later, unified the NXT North American and Cruiserweight Championships and is currently on his second reign as NA Champion while setting the record for most combined days with the title. But Hayes has repeatedly gone on Twitter voicing his frustration over the lack of a pay-per-view match and indicated he'll bring up that issue tonight on NXT 2.0.
So @WWENXT, the A Champ isn’t on Worlds Collide? Bet.
— Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE) August 26, 2022
One week until Worlds Collide and still no answer…I’m bout to show up to Shawn’s office Monday and flip all that shxt over. #MeloforWorldsCollide 🎯
— Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE) August 28, 2022
Gotta handle this tomorrow 🗣#MeloForWorldsCollide pic.twitter.com/e8QzBSyYnc
— Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE) August 29, 2022
"This is the last time I'm going to talk about this on the timeline, but this Worlds Collide thing and me not being involved in it is really starting to irritate me," Hayes said in a video on Monday. "The fact that I've been reaching out to NXT multiple times, and they've been ignoring me, it just feels disrespectful at this point. It's not like me to come on and complain like this, it's really not. I don't do that. But what I will do is pop up on NXT tomorrow and say what I need to say. And they may not like it and they may not hear me. But they gon' feel me."
NXT UK's closest equivalent of the North American Championship is the Heritage Cup, currently held by Noam Dar, but all of its matches are contested under British Round Rules so it's not a perfect one-to-one comparison. Who do you think should have a match with Hayes? Let us know down in the comments!