On 27th June 2002, a young John Cena debuted on SmackDown, confronting Kurt Angle. When Kurt asked him what quality he possessed that made him stand up to the best in the business, Cena said, “Ruthless Aggression”. Last week, Carmelo Hayes channeled the same ruthless aggression during his match against Adam Cole.

Carmelo Hayes channels his inner John Cena

Last week, Adam Cole walked out and cut a promo about how he wouldn’t compete until his big match against Kyle O’Reilly at Great American Bash. This led to new NXT signee, Carmelo Hayes walking out to confront the former NXT Champion. The former Christian Casanova set out to make a good impression, and he did exactly that.

Hayes claimed he’d be the one to change Cole’s mind and make him compete on NXT. Cole asked him how he planned to do that, which led to Hayes saying, “Ruthless aggression. Yeah, same energy,” before slapping Cole in the face. This led to him having his second match in NXT against the longest reigning NXT Champion of all time.

Having lost to Kushida in his debut, Hayes needed to get a win on the scoreboard. Unfortunately, he stepped into the ring with Adam Cole, who was already enraged with Samoa Joe choking him out last week. Cole did not take Hayes’ challenge lightly, but took a while before putting him away with the Panama Sunrise.

As for Hayes, his rise in NXT continues as he puts on impressive displays against a champion and a former champion. Cole gets in a decent showing before his big match against Kyle O’Reilly, and they entertained fans at the CWC with an incredible showcase.

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Card for Great American Bash

This week, WWE added two new matches to a stellar Great American Bash card. Last year, we witnessed a two-night bonanza with an Io Shirai vs Sasha Banks dream match and Adam Cole vs Keith Lee‘s Winner Take All match. This year we’ll get a single night of action, but it’ll feature some truly amazing matches.

Three titles will be on the line, the first being the NXT Tag Team Championship. Last week, Timothy Thatcher and Tomasso Ciampa defeated the Grizzled Young Veterans to book a GAB date with MSK. The women’s titles will also be on the line with Zoey Stark and Io Shirai winning a #1 contender’s triple threat match to challenge The Way next week.

Cameron Grimes will get a second chance to win the Million Dollar Championship from LA Knight, but the champion added a unique stipulation. If Grimes loses, he will be Knight’s butler. The main event will be the straight up wrestling match between Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly that has bucket loads of Match of the Year potential.

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