A countdown of the top 25 Intercontinental Champions in WWE history.
Introduced on September 1, 1979, was the Intercontinental Championship, which if you weren’t aware is named for what it is due to the fact that the title is a unification of the former WWF North American Heavyweight and South American Heavyweight championships. North America. South America. Pretty clever, right? The funny thing is that the latter actually wasn’t even a real thing but I’ll get to that in a bit.
In all seriousness, the Intercontinental Championship, which I’ll be calling the IC title at some points throughout this list, can be a big stepping stone for a WWE superstar as it signifies confidence that he can carry the mid-card for a while before he’s bumped into the main event scene. The IC champ used to always be considered the number one contender for the WWE Championship but that’s not always the case anymore and there have been instances when the Intercontinental Championship didn’t seem important at all.
But that doesn’t change the fact that some of the biggest names in the history of wrestling have held this prestigious title. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. Owen Hart. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Kurt Angle. Chris Benoit. Eddie Guerrero. CM Punk. Daniel Bryan. And these are all names that aren’t even on this list.
So who did make the cut? Well, let’s get to it and take a look at the 25 greatest Intercontinental Champions in WWE history.
25. Chyna
With some of the names I have listed above, I’m sure there’s plenty of people who don’t think that Chyna should be anywhere near this list. But there’s something to be said for being the first and only woman to ever win the Intercontinental Championship, first doing so by defeating Jeff Jarrett at 1999’s No Mercy pay-per-view in a Good Housekeeping Match.
The Attitude Era was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? But of all the items used in the match, it was Jarrett’s guitar (shocking, I know) that became his demise as the Ninth Wonder of the World smashed it over his head to make history. She held the title for eight weeks until losing it to Chris Jericho at Armageddon. Just a few weeks later, she regained the title, sort of, on an episode of SmackDown in a match with Jericho in which they pinned each other simultaneously and were named co-champs. However, WWE does not recognize this as an official reign for either, considering it vacant for a few weeks until Jericho won a triple threat against Chyna and Hardcore Holly at the Royal Rumble in early 2000.
Chyna did get an official second reign later that year, winning it from Val Venis in a mixed tag match. She teamed with Eddie Guerrero (remember how fun that whole storyline was) to face Venis and Trish Stratus with the person getting the pinfall or submission being named the champion. Chyna pinned Trish to secure the win and the title but would lose it just eight days later to Guerrero on RAW in a triple threat that included Kurt Angle.