25 best WWE Intercontinental Champions of all time

5. Mr. Perfect

I still don’t know how Curt Hennig never became WWE Champion (okay, maybe I do) but his time as Intercontinental Champion was absolutely … perfect. Too cheesy? Coming off a great run in the AWA, a run that saw him once hold the world title for more than a year, Hennig came to WWE for his second run with the company in 1988 and would adopt the Mr. Perfect gimmick a short time after. And before I forget to mention them, how amazing were those vignettes? Throwing passes to himself, bowling 300 games, hitting half-court shots were just a few of them and they were all…perfect. Okay, I’ll stop now. He remained undefeated for over a year, at least on TV, and finally won some WWE gold in 1990 after the Intercontinental Championship was vacated when The Ultimate Warrior won the WWE Championship from Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI. He won the ensuing championship tournament by defeating…who else?…Tito Santana in the finals and would go on to hold the title for 126 days before losing it to Kerry Von Erich, who had debuted just a few weeks earlier, at SummerSlam.

But Mr. Perfect would regain the title in a rematch on Superstars of Wrestling and his 280-day reign would go down as the longest reign of the 1990s. He would defend the title against a number of top WWE superstars but injuries to his back during a feud with the British Bulldog, coupled with a tailbone injury, cut his reign short but he fought through the pain long enough to get through the classic with Bret Hart at SummerSlam, for which every wrestling fan should be grateful. Hennig wouldn’t wrestle again for a year and a half. His two reigns lasted a total of 406 days, tying him with Shawn Michaels for eighth on the all-time list.