Carmelo Hayes says Shawn Michaels told him to never take a day off.
Speaking on a recent edition of “The Ringer Wrestling Show,” the WWE SmackDown Superstar revealed the advice he received from the Heartbreak Kid. He said,
“He told me, straight up, ‘You can never take a day off. A lot of these guys can take a day off and they’ll be accepted, but you can never take a day off or phone it in.’ It sucks in a way, but at the same time, I’m open to the challenge because the bar, for some reason, is raised higher because of my size. People are expecting way more. I can’t make mistakes. Not on top of my size, but being perceived as someone who is being pushed to the forefront. I feel a lot of criticism from people off everything I do. I’ve had the microscope on me for a long time.”
He added, “I’m kind of used to it now, but the bar is very higher. One, when you’re a Shawn Michaels guy. Two, when you’re a first round draft pick. Three, being undersized. Four, being of color. There are a lot of things that come into play with that pressure. I’m open to that challenge and looking to prove people wrong. As far as Shawn Michaels goes, he gives me that advice all the time. ‘You have to be better than the rest at everything. You can’t lack. What you lack in size, you have to make up for in every other category.’”
During the lackluster 2024 WWE Draft, it was announced that Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods would be staying on the RAW brand.
On a recent edition of the “Battleground Podcast,” Kingston commented on this year’s WWE Draft, him and Woods staying on RAW, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the WWE Draft: “The draft position is always funny, man. I think, for us, it didn’t really matter where we went because we know the ‘A’ show is whatever show that we’re on. Not to toot our own horn, but the greatest tag team of all time, the greatest tag team on the roster right now, the most consistent, we’ve been doing it for a very, very long time. So wherever your boys, the New Day are, is where the ‘A’ show is gonna be.”
On staying on RAW: “But needless to say, we are ecstatic about being back on Raw, staying on Raw, holding it down. We got a lot of new tag teams to mix it up with. But the draft is always super exciting, just for the fact that you don’t know where anybody is gonna go, you don’t know what the roster is gonna be like. But now that the dust has settled, as they say, I think that it’s great. It’s gonna be awesome. Raw is amazing. Totally stacked right now with all the people that we got on here. So I’m looking forward to seeing what we do and what we bring to the table.”
