Who Is The Longest Reigning United States Champion?

The United States Championship has been held by a plethora of iconic professional wrestlers from across both WWE and WCW’s rosters. However, there has only been one wrestler to have held the United States Championship longer than any other, and that’s none other than ‘The Narcissist’ Lex Luger.

During the latter days of the Territorial Era, the NWA and World Championship Wrestling were producing content hand-in-hand, elevating some of the top stars in America to new heights as part of their television deal with TBS. At the time, the United States Championship was being exchanged between future Hall of Famers Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper.

However, on the 22nd of May 1989, Lex Luger dethroned Michael P.S Hayes to become the United States Champion for the third time. This would become his personal longest tenure as champion and also the longest reign in the title’s storied history, with Luger setting the record at 523 days. A young Luger was being positioned to become a future main event attraction, feuding with the likes of Flair, Sting, The Great Muta and Brian Pillman, all with the US title in the centre of the action.

Luger’s reign became a perfect example of how the mid-card championship can be used as a stepping stone into the high-profile matches, as within a year after losing (and then reclaiming) the United States Championship from Stan Hansen, Luger fought for the ‘inaugural’ WCW World Heavyweight Championship after Ric Flair vacated the original NWA Championship by leaving the partnership. Luger would go on to defeat Barry Windham for the title, all the while still holding onto the United States Championship to become a double champion. Luger eventually relinquished the United States Championship to allow it to be vied for elsewhere on the card.

The success allowed Luger to forge a legendary career both inside and outside of WCW, eventually debuting for WWF under the same name in 1993, heralded as a major star that would challenge for the WWF Championship a year after his debut at WrestleMania X.

The only other wrestler to come close to breaking Lex Luger’s United States Championship reign is Dean Ambrose (now known as AEW’s Jon Moxley). Ambrose was the first of The Shield to win singles gold in WWE, capturing the United States Championship from Kofi Kingston in 2013 and holding it for a total of 351 days. Still a remarkable reign considering WWE’s tendency to hot-shot championships.

The United States championship continues to be a focal point of WWE programming, but will anyone ever break Lex Luger’s monumental reign?

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