25 best WWE Intercontinental Champions of all time

21. Edge

At the end of the day, Edge may always be remembered as half of one of the best tag teams in history but there’s no denying that his singles career was just as good if not better than his time with Christian … or Hulk Hogan (remember when they won the tag belts?) or Randy Orton or Chris Benoit or Chris Jericho or Rey Mysterio. Seriously, the guy won the tag titles 14 times. He also held the WWE Championship four times, the World Heavyweight Championship seven times and the United States Championship once. But he also held the Intercontinental Championship on five separate occasions and was a great champion, even if his five reigns only added up to a total of 171 days.

Edge actually won his first IC title at a house show in his hometown of Toronto in his early days, defeating Jeff Jarrett. But he would drop the title back to Jarrett just a day later at Fully Loaded and it would be more than two years before Edge would hold it again. He defeated Lance Storm at SummerSlam in 2001 but lost it 35 days later at Unforgiven to none other than Christian, who had turned on his longtime partner just a few weeks earlier. But Edge would regain it four weeks later in an unforgettable Ladder Match at No Mercy for his third reign. This time around, he would only hold it for 15 days as he lost to Test due to some outside help from Booker T. The saving grace was that Edge went on to defeat Kurt Angle for the United States title and his rematch with Test became a title unification match, a bout at Survivor Series that he would go on to win. He would hold the title until the Royal Rumble the following year, at which point he lost it to William Regal. Edge’s fifth and final reign wouldn’t come until 2004 when he defeated Randy Orton at Vengeance.

Unfortunately, he would have to vacate the title due to an injury.