To be fair to Kalisto, he’s not the worst United States Champion ever, but he certainly isn’t one of the best. While the spectacle of seeing him win the championship was great, the title hasn’t really been prestigious since John Cena dropped it, and it wasn’t really considered a big thing before Cena held it either.
So what WWE should do with the United States Championship is give it to John Cena and that’s it. That’s one way, but there are other methods to go about making it great again (without Donald Trump’s involvement). This article looks at five of those possible methods.
Have credible names feud over it
This is the most obvious way to make a championship important, and quite honestly it would help the United States Championship quite a bit.
I’m not just talking about Brock Lesnar, although there have been rumours about him and the championship, but also names like a returning John Cena, Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles and quite a few more. If the star power that goes after the Intercontinental Championship surrounds the United States Championship , it too would be elevated beyond anything before.
Have some kind of tournament for it
Some of the most popular angles with the Intercontinental Championship have been something multi-man; an elimination chamber match, a seven-man ladder match, a battle royal, so the same could be done to make the United States Championship a little bit more popular.
If an Elimination Chamber event does happen this year, then there could be a United States Championship Elimination Chamber match, or something as such, and that would be an interesting way to use the championship.
Merging both secondary championships
This has been a rumour for as long as can be remembered, and perhaps it’s what both secondary titles need.
When WWE unified the two primary championships into one at TLC 2013, they automatically made that one championship very important, and if they were to go back to the old ways by having only two titles, by unifying these two, then the United States and Intercontinental Championship could rise in terms of popularity and importance, and there would always be a certain novelty to the championship as a whole.
Making the United States Championship a #1 contenders’ championship
That heading may not have made sense, and that’s okay.
Since the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is the primary championship in WWE and the Intercontinental Championship is the next in the hierarchy, the United States Championship could be used in a unique way.
What if only the holder of the United States Championship could challenge the WWE World Heavyweight Champion? Assume Seth Rollins is the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and John Cena is United States Champion, and Cena challenges Rollins.
If Rollins wins, then Cena must put his title on the line against someone else, and if he wins he can challenge Rollins again, and if he loses, he loses his #1 contendership to someone else. If Cena wins, then Rollins becomes US Champion to serve his rematch clause, and the same criteria mentioned above will apply.
This way, the United States Championship becomes very important, and a truckload of people would be fighting over it, which could be highly beneficial for it.
WWE’s brand split – What happens to the US Title?
There have been rumours running rampant lately that Shane McMahon will assume control of Raw, and then Stephanie will take over SmackDown, and we’ll have the WWE brand split again.
These were further fueled by WWE’s latest promotional material (an example pictured above) being divided into Raw and SmackDown superstars, and it’s a great possibility that we’ll see this post-WrestleMania.
So what happens to the championships?
I think it’s fairly safe to say that the WWE World Heavyweight Championship stays on Raw, but the others are unknown. The Intercontinental Championship could become the primary title for SmackDown, and the United States Championship could be a secondary title between both shows, or both current secondary championships could be of equal importance on SmackDown.
WWE could split the WWE World Heavyweight Championship again as well, and have the new title be the primary on SmackDown, and have one secondary on each show, with perhaps the Divas’ and Tag Team Championships being flexible. The possibilities are endless, but the bottom line is, any way you look at it, the United States Championship becomes at least a little bit more important, and that’s good news any day of the week.
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