Why Antonio Cesaro will win the Intercontinental title
Antonio Cesaro with his manager Paul Heyman
The Intercontinental title – A title that was once treated on par with the WWE and World heavyweight championship. A title that yesteryear legends like Pedro Morales, Chris Jericho, the Honky Tonk man and many more held with great pride and most importantly a title that has been a stepping stone for future champions in the making.
Today, in the current scenario, the IC title as we call it has lost its sheen. Despite revamping it and making it look vintage, the title certainly has lost its importance in the WWE. The last set of superstars to hold the title have all been mid-carders and lower mid-carders who seem to offer nothing special when it comes to defending the title. Well, you gotta blame the bookings and not the superstars.
Either ways, the WWE seems to have come up with yet another of its ‘how to make the title relevant’ plans ( remember what they did to make the world heavyweight title relevant?) by organizing a round robin elimination tournament to decide the number one contender for the once coveted IC championship.
The winner of the tournament gets to face recently crowned champion Big E Langston for the title. But what makes this tournament a dead rubber is the involvement of Antonio Cesaro.
The Swiss superman as Michael Cole loves to call him is also competing in the tournament. With the wily Paul Heyman by his side, Cesaro showed no mercy as he defeated a hapless ‘Mr T‘ looking Mark Henry to earn a spot in the next round of the tournament. Cesaro completely dominated the match but abstained from using the ‘Cesaro Swing’ to make things look more realistic.
Anyways, coming back to the word dead rubber, what makes the tournament bland is that Cesaro seems to be the sure shot winner at the end of the day. The WWE seems to be giving Cesaro the much needed push at the right time and it looks too obvious that he will take the maximum from his honeymoon period.
Look at what the WWE did with all of Cesaro’s peers like Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston? They all received legitimate pushes and were soon crowned champions. What happened after that is a story for another day. But this seems to be the pattern that the WWE follows and it certainly is not hard to predict what is in store for Cesaro if you are a WWE fan over the years.
Yes, he is the best athlete there is in the WWE currently and definitely one of their best pound for pound wrestlers in recent times. They initially booked him wrongly on multiple occasions. His biggest liability was perhaps being a part of the ‘Real Americans’ stable. He pretty much did all the in-ring work on his own despite having the “All American’ Jack Swagger by his side. And most importantly, the stable itself on the whole served as cannon fodder for other teams to progress while these guys stayed at the bottom rung.
Whether it went well with the WWE or not, the fans certainly did not like to see Cesaro being underused. The “C-Section’ or Cesaro section as they call it clearly voiced out their opinions on regular intervals to show their support for him and it has certainly reached the right set of ears after looking at the outcome.
Cesaro swung his way to glory at Wrestlemania XXX by winning the Andre ‘The Giant’ memorial battle royal and has legitimately claimed his stake as a top performer in the WWE. With a push that seems eminent, he will in all probability claim top honors in the currently held Intercontinental title tournament as well.
The only hurdle he may probably face is that of the ‘Celtic warrior’ Sheamus, who can prove to be a threat to Cesaro’s title hopes. But, with the Cesaro wave that has hit the WWE in recent times, it could well be a green chit for the ‘Very European’ Cesaro all the way.