WWE SmackDown Spoiler: Former champion suffers first defeat on the blue brand against Kevin Owens

A former champion just suffered his first defeat on SmackDown against Kevin Owens.

Carmelo Hayes has been impressive ever since his NXT debut. He has proven himself to be an outstanding and reliable worker who has put on consistent performances on a weekly basis.

His work ethic saw him become the NXT North American Champion pretty early into his career. If that was not enough, he went on to win the NXT Championship earlier.

Hence, when Logan Paul announced the United States Championship Tournament, Hayes was the perfect candidate to represent NXT on SmackDown.

Hayes took part in the first-round match earlier tonight against Grayson Waller. He was able to pick up the win against his former nemesis. With this win, Hayes will face Kevin Owens in the next round of the tournament.

Since next week is the holiday season, WWE is pre-taping next week's episode of SmackDown after tonight's episode. Hence, the second round of the tournament took place tonight.

Hayes and Owens had a good match, but it was The Prizefighter who came out on top tonight. After the match, Owens showed some respect towards Hayes.

Screengrab of the result of Kevin Owens vs. Carmelo Hayes

With this win, Kevin Owens will now advance to face Santos Escobar in the finals of the United States Championship Tournament.

What do you make of this result? Sound off in the comments section below!

About the author

Sunil is a pro wrestling journalist, covering AEW and WWE news stories at Sportskeeda. He holds an MBA degree in Marketing, and has nearly 7 years of experience. A wrestling aficionado since childhood, Sunil used to imitate his favorite wrestlers as a young kid, and started writing professionally about the sport via Sportskeeda’s revenue-sharing opportunity.

Sunil admires former world champions AJ Styles, Will Ospreay, and Kenny Omega for their ability to consistently deliver great matches as well as entertain crowds with their mic skills.

If ever given a chance to change a storyline, Sunil would have booked Roman Reigns to end The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak instead of Brock Lesnar. According to him, The Tribal Chief needed the victory more than Brock Lesnar, as the latter was already an established performer when he defeated ‘Taker. He would’ve also made that as Taker’s final match.

Always focused on making his work accurate and reliable, Sunil thoroughly checks his facts before writing his articles. When not writing for pro wrestling, he spends his time watching cricket.

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Edited by Pratyush Rai