WWE revealed a new design for the Intercontinental Championship back on Nov. 22, but it sounds like the company isn’t finished redesigning some of its championships. According to custom championship belt maker @BeltFanDan the WWE also had a new design for the United States Championship recently made, and should be making its way to television in the near future. The title currently belongs to Rey Mysterio, who won the belt on a recent episode of Raw by beating AJ Styles. This week’s Raw saw six men battle in a gauntlet match for a shot at Mysterio, only for the bout to be thrown out when Andrade knocked out Humberto Carrillo with a Hammerlock DDT on the exposed concrete outside the ring.
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Dan added that he did not personally make the belt, so details on what it looks like are sparse.
New U.S. belt was delivered…. No idea what it looks like.
— Dan Beltzer (@BeltFanDan) December 16, 2019
WWE traces the lineage of the US title all the way back to 1975 when it was the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Though multiple US titles existed throughout the NWA, MACW’s version of the title was considered the “undisputed” championship starting in 1981. From 1991-2001 the championship was renamed the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship, and after the WWF purchased WCW the title quickly appeared on WWF television as part of the Invasion angle in 2001. The title would go on to change hands a number of times in the following months before Edge unified it with the Intercontinental Championship at the 2001 Survivor Series event, seemingly ending its lineage.
However that changed in 2003, as then-SmackDown manager Stephanie McMahon reintroduced the title as the Blue Brand’s secondary championship. With the exception of John Cena’s spinner belt, the title’s design has been virtually unchanged in the years since then.
Speaking of history, the title has a number of big names in its record books. Lex Luger holds the record for most days with the title at 950 tied with Ric Flair, John Cena, Chris Benoit, Wahoo McDaniel and Bret Hart for most title reigns at five (though some dispute that an unrecognized house show championship victory by Flair in 1980 gives him six reigns). Former WWE star Dean Ambrose (now Jon Moxley in AEW) holds the record for longest single reign with the title under the WWE banner at 351 days.
Following the gauntlet match on Raw, Mysterio was attacked by Seth Rollins and The AOP for loaning his metal pipe to Kevin Owens the week before. Rollins then challenged Mysterio to a title match for the Dec. 23 episode of Raw, which was taped later in the evening. You can check out the results of that title match here.
