25 best WWE Intercontinental Champions of all time

20. Shelton Benjamin

I think people sometimes forget what a big deal Shelton Benjamin was for a while. After spending the first two years of his WWE career teaming with Charlie Haas as part of Team Angle and The World’s Greatest Tag Team, winning the tag titles twice, Benjamin’s singles career got off to a great start, beating the likes of Triple H and Ric Flair during a feud with Evolution. He did lose an Intercontinental Championship match to Randy Orton at the Bad Blood pay-per-view, but following an injury, he returned to help Orton in his own fight with the stable and soon after was an option to face then-champion Chris Jericho in an IC title match at Taboo Tuesday. Shockingly, Benjamin beat out Batista and Christian in the fan voting and would go on to defeat Y2J to win his first singles title in the company, kicking off what would become the longest reign of the decade.

For the next 245 days, Benjamin defended the Intercontinental Championship on numerous occasions against worthy championship contenders like Christian and Chris Jericho. He lost the title to the debuting Carlito on an episode of Monday Night RAW in June 2005 but would regain it in February of the following year, ending the nearly five-month reign of Ric Flair. Benjamin would hold the title for 69 days this time around, losing it to Rob Van Dam in a Money in the Bank contract vs. IC title match. But just 15 days later, Shelton would enjoy a third reign as champion by besting RVD in a Tornado Tag Team match in which he teamed with Triple H and Chris Masters to take on RVD and John Cena. He would hold the title for 41 more days before giving it up for good to Johnny Nitro at Vengeance. In all, Shelton Benjamin’s three championship reigns added up to nearly a year.

Pretty underrated champ in my opinion.