Carmelo Hayes worked hard for a long time to get to the top of NXT. He is the current NXT Champion after defeating Bron Breakker at WrestleMania 39 and since then he has proved to be a fighting champion. He is currently fresh off a victory over Wes Lee, who he also created history with at NXT Heatwave. Now, it looks like the NXT Champion has something else up his sleeve, as he recently teased the return of a popular faction.
The Hurt Business was once at the very top of WWE. The dominant faction consisted of Bobby Lashley, Cedric Alexander, and Shelton Benjamin with MVP as their manager. The stable quickly rose to popularity under MVP’s guidance and despite gaining tremendous success, they were eventually disbanded by WWE. As of now, there have been several rumors of the group being brought back, with NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes dropping subtle hints about reforming the group.
NXT star Carmelo Hayes teases “Hurt Business” 2.0
Bobby Lashley is currently leading a faction comprising of himself, Montez Ford, and Angelo Dawkins. The duo were approached by Lashley last month and have since formed a stable. This week, NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes took to social media to post a picture of him with Dawkins and Ford. This has led many fans to believe that Melo will eventually end up joining Lashley’s faction to form the “Hurt Business 2.0”. Fans were obviously pretty enthusiastic about the group’s eventual return.
“Keep fn around, y’all bout to turn me back to the old me.”
-Dr Dre pic.twitter.com/pJH5mSSTRk— Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE) August 30, 2023
This Group Will Really put the Hurt On!
— Mark Aurand (@MarkAurand11) August 30, 2023
Business Trip 😏 https://t.co/Qwi7kb0PFe
— Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE) July 22, 2023
It should be noted that Carmelo Hayes has previously met with Bobby Lashley as well. Back in July, fans were in for a surprise when they saw Melo and Trick Williams running into Lashley. Melo later uploaded a post where he said that he and Lashley were meeting for a “business trip”. It was speculated around that time that WWE was going to put Carmelo Hayes in Bobby Lashley’s faction to bring back the popular stable. It looks like they have still kept in touch, and that the Hurt Business 2.0 may become a reality soon.
Lashley appeared on NXT weeks prior to meet Melo
Friday Night SmackDown once took place in Orlando, Florida back in July, which is home to WWE’s developmental brand NXT. Therefore, there were some superstars of the Yellow Brand who appeared on SmackDown. One of them was NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes, who ran into the former WWE Champion, Bobby Lashley.
In a backstage segment, Lashley approached Melo and Trick Williams. The three superstars had a conversation and exchanged a few words. This led to speculation that Lashley was trying to recruit Carmelo into his faction. After the show, the NXT Champion even took to X to post a picture of them meeting Lashley, and captioned it as a “Business Trip”. With this, fans had little doubt in their mind that Bobby Lashley may very well revive his old Hurt Business faction with new superstars, starting with The Street Profits and Carmelo Hayes.
It still remains to be seen whether or not Melo ends up joining Bobby Lashley’s Hurt Business. But with each passing week and a number of subtle teases, it has a high chance of happening.
