Carmelo Hayes claims he will win Money in The Bank moments after pinning a 14-time WWE Champion

WWE Superstar Carmelo Hayes has only been moving upwards in his pro wrestling career. The former NXT North American and NXT Champion got into some big matches with veteran superstars almost immediately after getting drafted to WWE SmackDown. While he did face some setbacks on the way, he has now pinned a 14-time WWE champion to qualify for the Money in the Bank match.

Carmelo Hayes was up against Randy Orton and Tama Tonga in a Triple Threat MITB qualifier match. The match saw The Viper, a 10 time WWE Champion and 4 time World Heavyweight Champion, singlehandedly dominating both Tonga and Hayes despite the two often teaming up against him. However, Melo took advantage of a distraction by Tonga Loa that was supposed to help Tama Tonga win and pinned Orton. Moments after the match, he posted a tweet on X and claimed that he would win the MITB briefcase as well.

“All signs indicate that Carmelo Hayes is winning MITB next month. #Smackdown.”

Notably, the 29-year-old superstar had previously lost to The Apex Predator in the King of the Ring tournament. With this win, he has gotten revenge on The Viper, who is a former MITB winner (2013) as well. Interestingly, while it is yet to be seen if Melo can win the prestigious contract, he recently topped a major pro wrestling ranking list.

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Carmelo Hayes achieves the number-one global rank in a major pro wrestling category

The Black Rasslin Podcast (BRP) generally covers pro wrestling news and talks about pro wrestlers. Recently, BRP released its latest top 50 rankings of black superstars and placed 'HIM' in the number one spot. Pleasantly surprised by this, Carmelo Hayes added a tweet on X to react to this achievement.

“Crazy. I don’t get too caught up in lists but this really isn’t about me, it’s more about US. We can’t be denied and one way or another, cream rises to the MF top. Shoutout @blackrasslin and everybody on the list, mad love,✊🏾” he wrote.

Melo has been talking about winning the Money in the Bank contract for quite some time now. In fact, he even made a bold prediction last week on the blue brand where he stated that he would be the one to get his hands on the contract. It would be interesting to see if defeating a former winner boosts his chances against the likes of fan-favorite Jey Uso.