HUGE Title Unification Match Set For WWE NXT New Year's Evil

Champ vs. Champ, and two other title matches confirmed for 4 January.

by Andrew Pollard
NXT 2.0 Roderick Strong Carmelo Hayes
WWE.com

As NXT looks to make a (day-glo) splash with its upcoming New Year's Evil episode, it's been announced that Cruiserweight Champion Roderick Strong will take on North American Champion Carmelo Hayes in a title unification bout.

Last night's NXT offering saw Malcolm Bivens throw down the challenge to Hayes, with Melo accepting said challenge later in the night. Strong and Hayes will be involved in a Wade Barrett-moderated contract signing on next week's NXT show, before then squaring off at New Year's Evil on 4 January.

All of this comes hot on the heels of plentiful speculation that plans were in place to retire or rebrand the NXT Cruiserweight Champion, and this seemingly seems to be the next step in calling time on the prize currently held by Diamond Mine's leader.

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Additionally, this week's NXT also confirmed two further matches for New Year's Evil. As predicted, NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa will again defend his title against Bron Breakker, whilst NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose will put up her gold in a triple threat bout against Cora Jade and Raquel Gonzalez.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.