Trick Williams: What I Was Doing For Carmelo Hayes In NXT, Lil Yachty Is Doing For Me Today
Williams looks back on Trick-Melo Gang.
The newest episode of Stephanie McMahon’s ‘What’s Your Story?’ podcast featured a sit-down chat with WWE United States Champion Trick Williams.
Looking back on his time with the NXT brand, Williams dove into working with Carmelo Hayes and what he learned from the former United States Champion. Williams feels that what he did for Hayes in NXT is what rapper, producer, and songwriter Lil Yachty is doing for him on the main roster.
“So when they say, ‘We’re going. Next week, we’re gonna get this thing going.’ Like, oh shoot. They said, ‘Trick and Melo. Y’all gonna be a package deal,’ and from there, Melo’s like — we was the same class. He always wanted to be a solo act, and I always wanted to be a solo act. That was the dream. That was the goal, and they said, ‘Y’all gonna do this together,’ and to Melo’s credit, he took the challenge on the head and said, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s make this work,’ and I was able to learn a lot from Melo, and I feel like it was beneficial for both of us, you know, them throwing us into the deep end of NXT 2.0. To see us both doing our thing today is pretty dope.” Williams would go on to explain what else he learned from Hayes and said, “I would say having an athletic background, I was raised — and my pops was in the military. There’s a dynamic of, you know, players play, coaches coach. Whatever they say, you do, and you like it. Where people who came from the indies had a more sense of being their own personal brand, and being in control of their brand and if they don’t like something, they’re pitching different things. I never went to Steve Spurrier and said I don’t like your play, you know what I mean? Just throw it to me. I would have got the ball way more if that was the case… But that’s one of the things I learned, like, he had ideas and he formed a relationship with the writers and everything like that. In a weird way, I always looked at the coaches like the opposition. Probably because of Hampton (University), and I always had a chip on my shoulder where I had to prove to the coaches that I’m good enough. You’re gonna give me a spot because I earned it… He didn’t have that chip. He probably has a different chip. I don’t know… He worked with them for the best product… Up to that point, I’ve never been able to just kind of go with the flow and trust the process. So that was where I had to learn this is a collaborative effort, and everybody wants everybody’s brand to be as big as it possibly can be because at the end of the day, we wanna make money. It’s a business… It might be your role to help somebody else look better today, and that’s okay. But at the end of the day, if you do it well, then somebody might be helping you one day, and that’s exactly what I was doing for Melo — Lil Yachty is doing for me today.”
Elsewhere during the chat, Williams said Yachty wants to wrestle. For more on that, click here.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit What’s Your Story? with Steph McMahon with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
