Major Title Fight Added To WWE NXT Heatwave Card

Carmelo Hayes will defend his 'A-Championship' against a rising star at Heatwave.

by Scott Carlson
Tommaso Ciampa Trick Williams Carmelo Hayes
WWE.com

Giovanni Vinci will challenge Carmelo Hayes for the NXT North American Championship next week on Heatwave, the developmental brand's latest television special.

Hayes is in the middle of his second run with the North American title, having won it back from Cameron Grimes in June. 'Melo issued an open challenge last week and Vinci answered the call, but he took too long posing for photos on the way to the ring, and Nathan Frazer beat him into the ring itself to actually take the match. Frazer would go on to lose a competitive matchup.

Vinci came out Tuesday on NXT 2.0 while Hayes still fuming about his buddy Trick Williams losing a rounds match to Wes Lee. Giovanni goaded Carmelo into putting the title up for Heatwave next week, which was later confirmed. The two took a series of swings at each other, but they dodged the strikes until referees separated them.

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Vinci, the repackaged Fabian Aichner, has been undefeated since returning to action two months ago. Previously, Vinci was mostly a tag team wrestler along with the former Marcel Barthel as part of Imperium. But when Barthel (now Ludwig Kaiser) and Gunther (formerly WALTER) were called up to SmackDown, Giovanni disappeared from TV and re-emerged with this new persona.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.