Carmelo Hayes Vs. Lexis King Unofficially Added To WWE NXT Deadline As Show Opener
It appears "WWE NXT" newbie Lexis King will be opening this Saturday's Deadline PLE event. King will be facing former "NXT" Champion Carmelo Hayes in the first match of the night — at least, it seems that way.
The match was set up during this past Tuesday's episode of "NXT," with some help from "NXT Anonymous." The mysterious backstage informant shared a video of Hayes making a phone call to someone right after speaking to Trick Williams, the same day Williams was attacked. King, meanwhile, has been claiming that he's the one who was behind the mysterious attack on Hayes' former friend. If that's not bad enough, King has been costing Hayes important matches like a spot in the Men's Iron Survivor Challenge, which will also be taking place at Deadline. Following the release of the video, Hayes sent a message to Shawn Michaels (by way of Ava Raine) indicating he wants a Deadline match with King. Williams, meanwhile, confronted Hayes, who continues to insist on his innocence. Williams told Hayes his match with King would open the show, while Williams' own match — the men's Iron Survivor Challenge — will close it.
It should be noted that none of the this has been made entirely official. While all signs point to Hayes vs. King opening Deadline, the show's preview page on the WWE website — which has been updated with other results from Tuesday night's show, including Fallon Henley and Tyler Bate qualifying for the Iron Survivor Challenge, Roxanne Perez fighting Kiana James in a cage, and Dragon Lee replacing an injured Wes Lee — still does not show Hayes vs. King on the card as of this writing. Similarly, no mention of that match took place during commentary's rundown card during Tuesday's "NXT" broadcast. That having been said, Hayes is one of "NXT's" biggest stars and is involved in one of its biggest storylines. He's listed on WWE's site as a "featured superstar" for Deadline, and his face is on the Deadline poster. Given the what we saw during the broadcast, it seems fairly obvious that Hayes will be wrestling, and that Deadline will mark King's WWE PLE debut after signing with WWE at the end of August following a stint in AEW.