10 Great WWE United States Championship Matches You Completely Forgot About

For a brief moment in 2015, the United States Championship was the most entertaining championship in all of World Wrestling Entertainment.

We all rolled our eyes when John Cena defeated Rusev for the strap at WrestleMania 31, but the Face That Runs The Place went on to defend the belt week after week on RAW, putting on great matches with the likes of Neville, Cesaro, Sami Zayn and more.

The United States Championship has a proud history of great matches however. Heck, it has a great history period. This feature will look purely at the World Wrestling Entertainment portion of that history, thanks mostly due to the wonders of the WWE Network.

The United States Championship was resurrected on SmackDown in 2003, when Eddie Guerrero won a tournament to become the new champion. Interestingly enough, this was 101st overall US Championship reign, the first of a new era. Since then the title has been held by some impressive names, including Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Booker T, Dolph Ziggler, John Cena and a host of others.

We all remember the classics, but what of the less heralded matches for the title? With the quality of the men who have held it, it is no surprise to find some gold hidden in the WWE vault, and here are 10 such matches, 10 great US Championship bouts you may very well have forgotten about.

SmackDown was live from Manchester, and Carlito Caribbean Cool was into his second week as a superstar for the blue brand.

Not only that, but Carlito was also into his second week as United States Champion, after winning the prestigious title in his debut match by beating John Cena of all people. Winning a title in your first match is rare, but doing so as pretty much an unknown and upending one of the most popular stars in the company in the process is practically unthinkable.

Rey Mysterio won a battle royal earlier in the evening to become the number one contender, and Carlito goaded Rey into the match that night via his classic 'Apple Spitting' move. The match was on, with Carlito hoping to benefit from the fatigued Rey having wrestled twice in one night.

2004 was a very different time. New talent frequently arrived on the main roster, but developmental was nowhere near as well-known as it is now. As such, new wrestlers would take a while to get moving on the main roster, as opposed to coming in with huge momentum from NXT. The crowd wasn't really into Carlito as a result, and this hurts the match for sure.

Still, Rey bumps his little booty off and, a slow middle section aside, this is a really fun match that would have benefited from a hotter crowd. One thing that is often forgotten about Carlito is how good he was at selling a near fall, and towards the end of this match there are some beautiful 2.999's for Rey, with an Asai Moonsault bringing one close one in particular.

Carlito survives, however, using his smarts and a hand on the rope to retain his title and pick up another win over an established name.