If you’re a babyface, you want to be cheered. If you’re a heel, you want to be booed. If you’re a professional wrestler, the last thing you want from people is dead silence. Apathy is a serial killer in professional wrestling: it has killed careers, it has killed entire title lineages, and it has killed whole companies. So, for me, a person who consciously wants to like the Women’s United States Championship picture, to be so completely apathetic to it? It’s worrying.

Chelsea Green put her Women’s United States Championship on the line against Giulia on “WWE SmackDown,” and I couldn’t bring myself to care. Even with my love for Green and my respect for Giulia, I literally couldn’t care less about Giulia’s second Women’s United States Championship win, or Green’s performance (Rough Ryder included), or the title in general. It was all so…boring. The Women’s United States Championship scene is boring to me, even when I have every reason and motivation to love it. I’m certainly not alone in this sentiment, so why is the Women’s United States Championship scene so unwatchable?

Please, please get someone other than Giulia and Green in the ring. Apart from a singular Zelina Vega reign, the only two titleholders — thus, the only two serious contenders — have been Giulia and Green. Hopefully the emergence of Jordynne Grace will help with this debacle, but a single women’s title scene cannot survive on two women alone — especially not two women who are barely given promos, video packages, or any other opportunities to showcase themselves and escalate their feud. If this title is going to matter, regardless of whoever is holding it, the pool of contenders need to be varied. Give me an Open Challenge series. The pool of contenders need to have stakes in the championship. Give me a feud that is personal first, and for the title second.

The fact that this was in the final hour of 2026’s first three-hour “SmackDown” did not help at all. My brain was already exhausted and thoroughly tired of wrestling by the 7:30PM mark, and so, this contest became just another thing I have to watch before the main event, instead of a title match I was looking forward to. Sure, we got a full-fledged Carmelo Hayes versus Johnny Gargano match because of the three-hour format, but otherwise? The three-hour “SmackDown” format is a beast to watch in one sitting, and any matches in that final hour, when everyone’s over it, are practically dead on arrival.

The Women’s United States title is a poorly booked accessory with a shallow pool of contenders and an unfortunate place on the card. Even if I wanted to care, how could I?

Written by Angeline Phu