Disclaimer: This is an opinion column and should in no way be taken as a report that Bayley is likely to win the United States Championship.

Smack down General manager Nick Aldis made a historic announcement last Friday evening. For the first time in WWE history, the women’s division will soon have a secondary championship to compete for in the locker room.

Details regarding the new U.S. Women’s Championship are scarce at the moment. Michael Cole said on commentary Friday that superstars from Raw and SmackDown will be able to compete for gold, but it is currently unclear when or how the first-ever champion will be crowned or if the title will remain anchored to a specific brand once that this will happen. .

MORE: WWE brings the United States Women’s Championship to SmackDown

Director of Content Paul “Triple H” Levesque ordered the World Heavyweight Championship in May last year and although the new title would become exclusive to Raw, superstars from both major brands were chosen to take part in it. compete. It’s certainly not impossible that the same scenario could happen here.

It’s hard to imagine a world in which the NXT United States and North American Championships have women’s counterparts and the Intercontinental Title doesn’t, but playing its introduction slowly could prove to be a wise choice. Establishing a new belt is hard enough, let alone two at the same time.

Whether or not another secondary title is imminent, the United States Women’s Championship is a welcome and much-needed addition to the company’s robust collection of accolades.

Long before guys like Shawn Michaels, The RockStone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H were fighting to be the WWE Championthey were competing against each other to win the intercontinental title.
Hopefully this new U.S. championship will also provide the springboard needed to raise the next generation of women’s world champions.

There’s currently a backlog of female stars on Raw and SmackDown who are stuck in limbo with no way to rise to a more prominent position and a crop of talented, hungry young women in NXT who are ready to burst onto the scene.

MORE: WWE Raw (11/11/24): Start time, match card, how to watch and live stream

You can make a case for any of them to become the first United States Champion. Women like Michin, who never stopped answering the bell whenever an opportunity presented itself. Her Dumpster Match with Chelsea Green was one of the most popular of the Bad Blood weekend, but there was unfortunately no follow-up to her victory in the weeks that followed.

Green is another talent who should garner high consideration for this honor. She has established herself as one of the most well-rounded performers in all of WWE. Someone who knows how to maximize her minutes and has proven she can turn real trash into comedy gold.

There is no shortage of women who could desperately take advantage of the opportunity to hold gold. Whether it’s Zoey Stark, Shayna Baszler, Sonya Deville, Zelina Vega, Lyra Valkyria, Piper Niven, Alba Fyra, Candice LeRae or a myriad of others.

Taking all of this into consideration, the first United States Women’s Champion should really be someone who can provide instant credibility and garner significant investment from the public. Just to get the ball rolling.

Choosing someone like Bayley as the first-ever United States Women’s Champion might not sit well with some fans at first, but with the role model currently missing from the WWE Women’s Title picture on SmackDown, she’s the perfect fit. to establish a solid foundation for other women to build on.

I keep thinking about Triple H’s comments about creating a new championship during the WrestleMania XL Night Two Press Conference. At that time, he was speaking to the recently commissioned World Heavyweight Championship. Trying to make sense of the title, to be as big as possible, he decided to give it to Seth Rollins and let him “go to work.”

This may be a different caliber of championship we’re talking about here, it’s not a world title, but putting gold around Bayley’s waist could prove to be the same winning formula as Rollins and the WHC.

Bayley had a disappointing run as WWE Women’s Champion after defeating IYO SKY at WrestleMania XL. The strict confines of a two-hour SmackDown all but forced her to take a back seat over the summer, while many potential challengers competed in both the Queen of the Ring tournament and Money in qualifying matches. the Bank.

She only had three televised title defenses before losing to Nia Jax at SummerSlam, one of which ended in a no contest. An active run as United States Champion would certainly be a nice bounce back for Bayley, assuming history doesn’t repeat itself. It’s also a title reign that wouldn’t need to be long to make an impact.

Personally, I would seek to reproduce the model defined by Becky Lynch when The Man won the NXT Women’s Championship late last year. An abbreviated series that will give several underutilized women a chance to prove themselves, help establish a future star – ala Tiffany Stratton – and ultimately cast someone in a major way like Lynch did with Lyra Valkyria.

Having the ability to bounce between the two shows will initially give Bayley plenty of opportunities to make the new US Championship the “workhorse” of the women’s division, especially if either – or both – Raw and SmackDown are extended to three hours in January.

Roll your eyes if you must, but the success of this championship will depend on the television time devoted to it and, at the moment, those minutes are precious.

The talent themselves can only control so much and having 5-6 hours of weekly TV on the main roster makes it extremely less likely that this belt will fall by the wayside. Even more so if it’s Bayley wearing it, but again, that’s not a guarantee if her WWE Women’s Title run is any indication.

Despite the creative concerns of commanding a new championship, Bayley has been in this situation before. When the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships were introduced in 2019, WWE looked to her and Sasha Banks (now wrestling as Mercedes Moné in AEW) to establish them.

The execution this time around will have to be much better than how WWE handled Bayley and Sasha’s inaugural run with the tag team belts and I think Triple H knows that. He’s always praised Bayley and he trusts her, which is why I think she has a legitimate chance to become the first woman to hold the United States Championship.

Bayley’s passion for advancing the women’s division may be unmatched on the active roster. She will wear the title with pride. She will do everything possible to make her opponents look strong, even in defeat. And when the time comes, perhaps at WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, she will pass the torch and the title to a worthy successor.

—Your one-stop shop for everything professional wrestling—

Street Profits’ future in WWE is clouded in mystery; Latest report on the status of their contract

Former WWE Superstar Melina Reveals Details About Her Infamous WWE Ring Entrance

Rey Mysterio Talks Dominik’s Entry into the Wrestling World and How He Learned the 619 in WWE Vault Video