Current WWE Champion Hoping For More Creative Storylines

A current champion in WWE would like to be involved in major storylines in the future.

Carmelo Hayes has been the WWE United States Champion on the SmackDown brand since December 19th, 2025, when he defeated Ilja Dragunov for the title.

In the two months since winning the gold, Hayes has continued the US Title Open Challenge tradition started by John Cena over a decade ago, which was then continued by Sami Zayn and Ilja Dragunov last year.

Since becoming the champion, Melo has beaten several big names on the WWE roster, continuing to amaze fans with his incredible in-ring skills.

However, Hayes is not really part of storylines much since the US Title scene features an open challenge, so he hasn’t had the chance to really have a significant feud on the main roster. He did have a rivalry with The Miz, but it was never pushed that much.

Carmelo Hayes Wants WWE To Build Storylines Around US Title

While speaking with Good Karma Wrestling, Carmelo Hayes emphasized that having the US Title Open Challenge is a good thing, but he’d like to see WWE use storylines involving the title and his character.

“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 because I do feel like there is a period where guys have to earn an opportunity to get a title shot.

You know what I mean? I don’t think guys should just be able to pull up every Friday and just automatically get a title shot. Because I didn’t get — 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 to get an opportunity for an opportunity. So you know what I mean, I’d like to bring that back.”

Another point to make is that while the US Title is defended on television often, it’s rare to see a US Title match on a WWE PLE, which would help raise the title’s importance.