8 Ups & 2 Downs From WWE SmackDown (16 Jan - Results & Review)

4. Carmelo Hayes Fends Off Leon Slater

Ooft! It was neat to see young Leon Slater answer the ‘Open Challenge’ call and go after Melo’s United States Title. Put plainly, it'd be a lie to say that fans in London were particularly behind him more than Hayes, but that’s OK. Slater's pretty new to a lot of people who haven’t watched TNA, and Carmelo has been building something nice as a babyface champion.

The match represented another sweet title defence for Hayes.

As aforementioned in prior SmackDown recaps, it’d be ace to see him in a full on feud, but these ‘Open Challenge’ matches have been working for the show since last year and he's in a good spot doing them. One gets the feeling this pair could do something special if they were handed even more time and had an issue with one another, but they smashed their role on Friday's broadcast like it was easy work.

Credit must go to Melo for repeatedly selling his leg, because that’s nice continuity and links back to prior war wounds during rugged matches. No worker should keep the week-to-week competitive match schedule he is right now and seem 100% every single time. This isn't WWE 2K25 - sometimes, it's a positive when wrestlers show vulnerability in the face of a new challenge.

Hayes looked like the savvy veteran of the piece on Friday. Leon was pretty much Carmelo when he first arrived on the main roster, which was a fab way to format the story of the match. Don't sleep on this one even if you already knew the result going in. It's worth a watch.