Grading John Cena's WWE United States Championship Run Thus Far

John Cena has been an alchemist with the WWE United States Championship in hand, turning a leather strap of middling value into a treasured golden prize.

Even the most hopeful WWE official couldn't have imagined how much the prestige of the belt would rise with Cena at the helm. With a flurry of great matches and his loud proclamations of what it means to him, he has elevated his championship to a place it hasn't been in a long time. 

The U.S. title hasn't felt significant at all since Montel Vontavious Porter, Chris Benoit and others were fighting over it more than seven years ago. The championship's golden age, though, predates that period, its peak being its NWA/WCW days when it belonged to top-tier stars. 

It was once the accessory preferred by men who would eventually stroll into the Hall of Fame: Ricky Steamboat, Ric Flair, Rick Rude, Sgt. Slaughter. 

That now feels like eons ago. Poor booking with ill-advised champions like Santino Marella has since hollowed out much of the title's value.

Putting it on Cena has turned out to be the exact right move, even if WWE has missed some opportunities to use the title's renewed cache to make a star out of someone else. When discussing whether Cena would ever return to the world title picture, Jim Ross was spot on with what the champ is busy doing at the moment:

A big part of that is how Cena has spoken about the title.

Promos: A-

Although Cena can fall into patterns, delivering somewhat repetitive rants, he has made sure to successfully talk up the title he currently holds.

While he was in the midst of a feud with Rusev, the focus was on the patriotism involved in being the U.S. champ. This is where his speeches had the least power. There are only so many times you can hear a guy scream that the U.S.A is great and that he intends to prove it by winning.

That narrative never stuck.

It was an outdated wrestling trope from an era that was often built around good American-against-evil foreigner. Maybe it's because we're more of a global society now or maybe that angle is just tired at this point, but it didn't work in 2015 as well as WWE would have liked.

When Cena began to zero in on the championship itself is when his reign began to really take off. He sold the title as a symbol of excellence, a trophy for the hard-working warrior. 

Fans saw a glimpse of that shift early on, just days after WrestleMania. He called out to potential challengers. "Bring me your outcast, bring me your underdogs, bring me your future stars, bring me your have-nots, bring anyone The Authority thinks is a B+ player."

This element has grown over time. 

By June, he had vanquished Rusev and Kevin Owens was swiping at the title. Cena passionately spoke about that belt, raising it in the air. 

He said, "This championship will not be protected by politics. The rules for this are simple: may the best man win."

This has been the crux of his reign. The title feels like a symbol of opportunity, a brass ring waiting to be grabbed.

Applying his usual verbal skills, charisma and heartfelt delivery, he's provided his time as champ with a number of memorable speeches. 

And although he has yet to provide a Superstar with the spoils of victory and truly put them over, Cena has done his best to do that verbally.

After Battleground, he said in a backstage interview that Owens "belongs in the most elite class of WWE Superstars." After one of his two memorable clashes with Cesaro, in front of the Chicago crowd, he told The King of the Swing after Raw went off the air, "What you can do in this ring is simply amazing."

A respect and passion for the title that has been missing for too long is back. Some of that is of course, thanks to Cena being scripted to talk about the championship, but credit aplenty has to go to him to make those words convincing. 

Matches: A+

Before Cena's current reign, tallying up the greatest U.S. title matches in WWE history was a difficult task. There had only been a handful of tremendous battles for the title since Vince McMahon's company took it into its world.

That's no longer the case. A good number of the matches with strong cases to win Match of the Year have featured the U.S. crown.

Thank a wealth of defenses and Cena's ability to deliver big matches time and time again. His near-weekly open challenges have consistently led to some of the best in-ring work each night.

Cena flourished opposite against Neville, Stardust, Dean Ambrose, Bad News Barrett and Sami Zayn in one-off battles with no story other than the challenger wants to be the next champion.

That alone is more than most recent U.S. champs can boast. The divisive star who often draws the ire of the Internet Wrestling Community has topped those performances several times over.

Twice, he and Cesaro tore the house down. Each of those bouts on Raw felt like something befitting a main event on a pay-per-view. 

Add some solid work against Rusev, a strong performance against Seth Rollins despite a broken nose on this past Raw and of course, three instant classics against Owens.

Cena brought out the best in Owens; Owens brought out the best in Cena. This collision of two such different wrestlers married the fun of indy move sets with WWE's dramatic style. 

That trio of matches may not have had the result many fans were looking for, but there's no denying that they are among the best action WWE has seen all year and far surpass anything Kofi Kingston, Ambrose and others did with their turn with the title. 

This string of memorable matches against Owens, Cesaro and the others who have answered Cena's open challenge leaves the U.S. title feeling like something WWE's gladiators are desperate to have.

Beyond that, they provide a flood of positive memories around the title. It's hard to even remember what some previous titleholders did, but that won't be a problem with Cena. 

Feuds, Moments: B

Cena has worked his ass off between the ropes and poured his guts out when handed a mic. Still, there's a deficiency when it comes to the power of his rivalries. 

His more long-term opponents haven't benefited from their showdowns with Cena as much as they could have. Rusev isn't in a better place post-Cena. And Owens began red-hot, only to turn lukewarm by the end of his run-ins with the champ.

A lot of that is a booking issue.

Rusev didn't just lose the title to Cena; he lost three-straight matches on pay-per-view. He lost a Russian Chain match despite it being the match of his people, so to speak. He screamed "I quit!" in their final battle and lost his girl in the whole process.

The most striking image of that storyline was Rusev squeezing a chain around Cena's face. It turned out to be more brutal than the actual match that followed.

His rivalry with Rusev had high points of intensity all over the place, but in the end it didn't come together as a great package.

Cena vs. Owens was better thanks to higher-quality matches, but aside from their first few confrontations, there wasn't a whole lot to savor in between their matchups.

Fans will forever praise their in-ring work together, but will find it hard to pinpoint much more than that. WWE Creative missed out on an opportunity to truly establish Owens as a fearsome beast. Even if WWE felt that Owens had to lose at both Money in the Bank and Battleground, it could have done a better job of giving him chances to scratch his name into our memories.

Had Cena been injured longer (or at least limped around for a few weeks) after Owens powerbombed him on the ring apron, for example, the rivalry would have better served the former NXT titleholder.

Oddly enough, Cena's best moments as champion have come outside of battle.

He made headlines when he invited a kid holding up an "I'm beating cancer" sign into the ring. He made headlines when he appeared on a "My Wish" segment on SportsCenter, goofing around with a kid who had just received a kidney transplant. 

And most recently, Cena created buzz by gutting out the end of a match with a busted nose.

The droplets of blood dotting the canvas, the misshapen mess sitting on his face will forever be remembered as part of his reign. The connection to all of these instances is that Cena brought added eyes to the U.S. title.

He wore that championship proudly as he helped those kids and as he stood post-match with a caved-in nose.

All of that helps the title. Like his work on interviews and in matches, he keeps the spotlight on a championship that is not accustomed to so much focus.

This is why WWE pegged him for the job; this is why despite the criticism thrown his way, the goofy, stale character that he employs, the company will lean on him for years to come.