WWE’s Carmelo Hayes Explains Special Bond With Bron Breakker
Carmelo Hayes and Bron Breakker are on opposite brands on the WWE main roster, but there will always be a special connection between them.
It was three years ago this month when the WWE NXT 2.0 brand launched featuring several younger wrestlers who had no experience on television. It was WWE management’s way of trying to get some new stars on television.
While NXT 2.0 may not be remembered fondly by all fans, there were at least two male wrestlers who stood out: Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes. They took different paths since Breakker came from the football world while Hayes was a top independent wrestler. They are the two men who had long reigns with the NXT Title and NXT North American Title. When Hayes became NXT Champion, he beat Breakker to solidify himself as the top guy on the brand.
In the 2024 WWE Draft, Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes were both drafted to the main roster with Hayes going to Smackdown while Breakker went to Raw. Breakker has had more success by the Intercontinental Title, but Hayes is featured regularly on Smackdown as well.
During an appearance on The Masked Man Show, Hayes spoke about the bond he will always share with Breakker.
“Super happy for Bron man, it was inevitable. Bron is, he’s just one of one for real. Despite our past and everything like that, me and Bron are cool.”
“It’s a special kind of camaraderie that we have because we know that we were both in the trenches of — I don’t want to say trenches like it was a bad thing, but the trenches of 2.0, you know what I mean? We were really heavily, Shawn has even given us credit, we were heavily relied on in a lot of ways. Him at that time with the NXT title and me with the North American title, just to balance that show.”
“It’s funny sometimes where we’re like, ‘Remember the thing with Taker and Cena?’ We just looked at each other and we’re like, what the freak, what is going on bro. We have sort of a camaraderie or weird bond that’s like, only we know what we had to go through and we know the pressures that were put on us to succeed or produce when there was a lot of people that were looking at it in a negative way I guess.”
Carmelo Hayes Rivalry With Andrade Will Continue
Throughout the summer, Carmelo Hayes has had a rivalry with Andrade that continued on WWE Smackdown in Sacramento. After Andrade lost a US Title match to LA Knight, Hayes got into a fight with Andrade in the backstage area.
That fight between Hayes and Andrade led to an announcement of a sixth match between the two men. Andrade has picked up three wins against Hayes while Hayes has two wins, so Hayes will be looking to tie the series, which seems likely because then it would set up a seventh match between them.