The United States Championship – Love It or Leave It!

A championship is meant to help elevate a wrestler, to show that they are good enough to win that title, and in turn their talent and ability elevates the title as well. A perfect example of that is The Undertaker’s reigns as World Heavyweight Champion, making the “B-Show” championship seem more important than it had in the past. Yet, one title, the WWE United States Championship, has been so poorly utilized over the last couple of years that it makes me wonder if it is even worth keeping around.

I realize that WWE will most likely never view the U.S. title with the same reverence as the Intercontinental Championship, mostly because the U.S. title came from WCW whereas the IC title has always been a WWF/E championship. This point is prominent in the use of the two titles in the last couple of years with the U.S. title barely being defended. Dean Ambrose had a near year long reign, which would be impressive if he had defended the title more than four times in the final six months of his time as champion. That could be seen as a one-time occurrence since at that time, The Shield was still intact and spending most of their time fighting as a unit; however, in the near five months that Sheamus has been U.S. champion, how many times has he defended it on television or pay-per-view? Once? Twice?

It has become something of a trend. Looking back at the recent United States title history, the title has rarely made a difference to any who have held it, or vice versa. The Intercontinental Championship has sometimes had the same results (like with Big E), though recently with guys like Cody Rhodes, Bad News Barrett, and current champion Dolph Ziggler holding the strap, it certainly does appear that the IC title has a bit more success elevating wrestlers to a slightly more prominent status, and as such, elevating the title itself.

The question remains, what should WWE do with the United States Championship? With the introduction of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt featuring the new logo, it has officially become one championship with one belt. The Women’s and Diva’s titles were unified in 2010, with the tag titles being unified the previous year in 2009. The mid card is the only part of the roster that still has two titles, but does it need both? The short answer is no, for reasons I have already stated above. It would be very easy to unify the U.S. and Intercontinental titles. In fact, the two championships were already unified once in 2001 with the IC being the dominant championship, however it lasted less than two years before the U.S. title was revived. The only reason it has been kept around this long, as far as I can guess, is its legacy.

The WWE United States Championship can actually be traced back to Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling which in turn became WCW. The list of former champions is a who’s who of professional wrestling. Harley Race, Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Steve Austin, Sting, Eddie Guerrero, just to name a few. And those were prior to the U.S. title becoming part of the WWE fold. The list of U.S. champions within WWE isn’t too shabby either: John Cena, Booker T, MVP, Daniel Bryan. With such an impressive lineage it isn’t surprising that the title is still around, even if WWE often buries some of the remnants of World Championship Wrestling. However, lineage alone shouldn’t be what keeps a championship going. Otherwise it becomes a useless prop, instead of building on what has come before.

As I mentioned in my WrestleMania XXXI Speculation article, I feel one of the best uses for the United States Championship right now would be to put it on Rusev. He’s a beast who has yet to submit or be pinned, so clearly the powers that be have faith in him, and I can’t think of a better way to get fans excited about the U.S. title than to have it around the waist of a foreigner. Picture Rusev entering the ring, raising the belt over his head with one arm and roaring at the crowd. You can almost hear JBL’s rage-filled protests. This would also give the fans another reason to root for every new challenger that steps up to the plate to face the Bulgarian Brute. Instead, we have Sheamus carrying around the title, not defending it, just carrying it around. Although, that may soon change.

This past Monday on Raw Cesaro became the #1 contender for The United States Championship setting up a feud between he and Sheamus. Could this be the opportunity for the U.S. title to once again be held proudly and live up to the legacy of its past, elevating two young wrestlers in the process? Or is the United States Championship destined to be nothing more than an accessory?

Photo by WWE.com

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