`  *I really have a hard time understanding why some people always want to delete the U.S. Championship from consideration.  *Let's look at this step by step:  **2002Brock Lesnar takes the WWE Championship to Smackdown, so Raw GM Eric Bischoff creates the World Championship for Raw.  Both Championships are understood to be of the same value. **Still in '02WWE Tag team Champions Lance Storm and Christian jump from Smackdown to Raw, so  Smackdown GM .Stephanie McMahon sets up a tournament to crown Tag Team Champions for Smackdown.  Again, the gist is that both sets titles were to be viewed as equals. **2003In early June, Raw co-GM ``Stone Cold`` Steve Austin announces a Battle Royale to crown a winner for the newly reactivated Intercontinental Title, so then a couple of weeks later, Stephanie McMahon set up a tournament for the newly reactivated United States Title.  The timing of this was done purposely to show that the I-C and U.S. titles were to be viewed  as parallel to each other.  *Even though Vince McMahon didn't come from the mountain top with stone tablets making a proclamation, all of these new titles were introduced in such a way as to show that they were the equals of the originals.  *It's just a simple case of putting 2 + 2 together and figuring it out, not everything has to be spelled out for something to be understood.   `