The Day The WWE United States Championship Died

With the Championship belt left to rot in the ring, Dolph Ziggler forlornly left for the presumed sanctity of the Hollywood (Florida) Hills.On commentary, Corey Graves questioned what it all meant. In the arena, fans stayed mostly silent save for pockets trying to get an insipid round of that "Goodbye" song going.

One of these things was not like the other.

The joke wasn't on the audience for not giving the requisite number of sh*ts, but on Ziggler himself for having to deliver that speech as if they still did, and on Graves for having to literally imagine they still cared and vocalise that.

But this isn't about The Day Interest In Dolph Ziggler As A Main Eventer Died (spoiler, it was the 2018 Royal Rumble exactly one month later), but the night that put a bullet in the heart of a once-beloved Championship. Ziggler threw the belt to the ground, but he was merely the paid assassin in this particular set piece.

In a bizarre and fatally flawed attempt to raise a wrestler they'd anchored, the company sacrificed the belt John Cena had grafted to salvage two years earlier. It was a bloody and brutal massacre. Dolph's credibility was (back) in tatters. The belt was entirely valueless. Cena's matches from that legendary summer were for naught. And the belt itself - pathetically - was back in business just weeks later.

CONT'D...