5 Best Intercontinental Championship Matches of All Time
The Intercontinental Championship first came into existence on September 1, 1979, when the title was "won" by WWE Hall of Famer, Pat Patterson in a phantom tournament that allegedly took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That location was an inside joke, due to Patterson being homosexual and the Brazilian city being well known as a popular gay hangout.
Patterson held the belt for around seven months before dropping it to Ken Patera.
Over the next few years, the IC Championship became known as the "workhorse" title awarded to the best technical wrestlers in the promotion whilst the Heavyweight Championship was contested among larger, more limited performers such as Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior.
The likes of "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat, Bret "Hitman" Hart, Mr. Perfect and Shawn Michaels all enjoyed significant reigns with the IC Championship, contesting brilliantly memorable and entertaining match ups.
The title lost significance in 1999 when the Vince Russo inspired booking saw the title change hands a ridiculous 11 times. The title had only changed hands a total of 49 times in the prior 20 years!
The result of this destructive booking was that the IC Championship lost its lustre and its owners did not gain anything by holding it.
Attempts have been made ever since to attempt to rebuild the prestige of the title with varying success.
2018, however, has been an excellent year for the title. Roman Reigns entered the year as the reigning champion and lost the strap in an exciting contest with The Miz on the 25th-anniversary episode of Raw. Miz entered Wrestlemania as champion where Seth Rollins won the belt in the best match of the night in a triple threat encounter also featuring Finn Balor.
Rollins main evented the Extreme Rules pay per view, marking the first time a singles bout for the IC title has main evented a pay per view event since Summerslam 1992.
The IC title is back where it belongs. The following slideshow looks at the five very best matches contested for the IC Championship.
#5 The Rock vs Triple H - Summerslam 1998 (August 30, 1998)
The Rock entered Summerslam 1998 as the Intercontinental Champion. He had held the title since December 1997, becoming a bonafide main eventer in waiting.
Triple H, for his part had held the title before, but to much less fanfare in 1996 under his previous Greenwich blue blood character. As the leader of the renegade D-Generation X stable, Triple H had gotten over like never before and was on the fast track to the main event himself.
There was plenty on the line at Summerslam 1998. The pair traded finisher attempts early on before bringing the ladder into play, brutalising each other with it. Triple H baseball slid the ladder into Rock's face busting him open.
D-X and the Nation got involved, each helping out their man. Finally, it was the "Game" who scaled the ladder successfully to win the title for a second time.
One of the best ever matches for the IC title and probably the last time, for a number of years that the Championship meant anything significant.