Carmelo Hayes has had an excellent run as WWE United States Champion. He beat Ilja Dragunov for the title on the December 19, 2025, episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown. Since then, he has gone on quite a winning streak. He has beaten Johnny Gargano, Shinsuke Nakamura, Leon Slater, and, once again, last week, Dragunov.
It’s been an impressive run, but the longer his winning streak goes, the quality of his opponents will rise. More and more men are going to take notice of his impressive title run, and they’ll want a shot at the title.
Sooner rather than later, he’ll have to be creative in his thinking to retain his championship if the quality of his opponents rises. On January 30, 2026, an episode of SmackDown, another skilled challenger stepped up to him in hopes of becoming the United States Champion themselves.
Rey Fenix Fails to Take Down Hayes for the US Title
Since arriving at WWE last April, Fenix has been very impressive in the ring. After all, he did have a lot of notoriety and accolades outside of WWE. Some people fail to live up to those high standards, but he has been gaining new fans every week. However, there are two things they are still waiting for him to accomplish.
One is the obvious reunion with his brother Penta. The other is for him to capture a title in WWE. He previously had a match for the US title on the September 12, 2025, SmackDown, but was unsuccessful at beating Sami Zayn.
Would he finally get the title four months later? The match started, and they both launched a full-speed offensive attack on one another. Using their size and strength to their advantage, they dazzled the crowd with incredible moves. Hayes kicked out of a springboard moonsault. Fenix managed to kick out of La Mistica. Then, he kicked out of a springboard DDT from Hayes. They were throwing everything at each other, but couldn’t stay down.
Fenix launched another DDT, but again the match continued. That took a lot out of him, as it gave Hayes the advantage. He ran towards him, but got caught with a First 48. Hayes climbed to the top rope and delivered Nothing But Net. The pin was applied, and he walked away as still the United States Champion.
Even though he didn’t win, Fenix was very impressive during the match. There were many times when it seemed like there was going to be a new champion. For now, Fenix is still looking for his first title. But if he keeps putting on performances like that, he’ll have a title sooner rather than later.
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