Carmelo Hayes On Learning Under Shawn Michaels in NXT
Carmelo Hayes is learning a ton from WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels.
During one of his first NXT appearances, Carmelo Hayes brought out his inner John Cena, facing off against Adam Cole and show so-called “Ruthless Aggression.”
Carmelo Hayes has been on WWE TV for almost a couple of years now, catching comparisons to both Cena in his early career, as well as 90’s star Shawn Michaels.
Appearing on “The Ringer” for an interview with Cameron Hawkins, Carmelo Hayes spoke about his development under Shawn Michaels during his time in NXT and what’s similar between both of them.
“You’d be surprised how often [Shawn] pulls me back. And there’s times where I have to be like, ‘Hey, don’t forget who you were.’ But he reminds me, like, ‘Hey, don’t do as I did. Do as I say.’ And he reminds me [that it] was a different point in his life. And if he could go back, I’m sure he probably would change a lot of those things.”
Having addiction problems and a negative attitude during his first run in WWE back in the 1990’s, Michaels is open about it. In 1998, his issues ultimately forced him to retire.
In the career of the “Heartbreak Kid,” one of his most memorable moments in World Wrestling Entertainment was when he was in a barbershop and threw Marty Jannetty out of the window. Breaking away from Jannetty, Michaels formed a partnership with Diesel, real name Kevin Nash.
Inspired by the bit, Diesel and his NXT comrade Trick Williams, who plays Diesel-style gimmick to Hayes, have recorded promos of them shooting their shot in a barbershop.
“It’s like a cheat code. I got it on my own. But it’s like somebody that just makes you so much better, you know what I mean? He complements me so well. I complement him so well. And there’s so many different things that we can do as a duo in one match. There’s so many different backstage segments, promos; it’s endless with Trick and I, we’re just so creative individually.
Then we put it together, and we just make what we do every week on TV. [Shawn] told us, ‘Hey, we need to get you guys doing something, but maybe we’ll throw you guys in a barber shop or something like that.’ OK, no problem. We get a couple of people, and we really just riff, man. We just sit in the barber chair and we just talk how we would talk. And obviously we still got to pull back on a lot of things that we would say we would do, but yeah, man. So smooth, man.”
On Saturday, Carmelo Hayes squares off for the NXT North American Championship at their Halloween Havoc Premium Live Event in a ladder match, a match that contributed to making Shawn Michaels a superstar.