The WWE United States Championship is a professional wrestling championship promoted by the American promotion WWE, currently defended on the Raw brand division. It is one of two secondary championships for WWE's main roster, along with the WWE Intercontinental Championship on SmackDown. The current champion is Austin Theory, who is in his second reign. The championship was established on January 1, 1975, as the version of the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship that was defended in Jim Crockett Promotions, and later assumed by World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which eventually seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Harley Race was the inaugural champion. After WCW was purchased by the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 2001, the then-WCW United States Championship was defended in the WWF until it was unified with the Intercontinental Championship at that year's Survivor Series. After the 2002 brand extension and the promotion being renamed WWE, the championship was reactivated as the WWE United States Championship in July 2003 as a secondary title of the SmackDown brand. The United States Championship has switched between brands over the years, usually as a result of the WWE Draft; the 2019 Superstar Shake-up moved the title to Raw. Of WWE's currently active championships, the United States Championship is the only one that did not originate in the promotion. It is the second-oldest active title in the company, behind the WWE Championship (1963), but the third longest-tenured championship, behind the WWE and Intercontinental Championships (1979), as WWE has only owned the United States Championship since 2001. History The United States Championship began as a regional championship called the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, one of several versions of the title allowed in different territories under the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) bylaws. It was created by and defended in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (MACW) run by Jim Crockett Jr. Introduced on January 1, 1975, Harley Race became the inaugural champion. The title quickly replaced the NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship as the top singles title in the promotion. While the NWA recognized only one World Heavyweight Champion, there was no single undisputed United States Champion as a number of NWA regional promotions recognized their own version of the title and champion. That changed, however, in January 1981; San Francisco-based NWA territory Big Time Wrestling, which was the last remaining promotion outside the Mid-Atlantic territory that recognized its own United States Champion, ceased operations around that