Intercontinental Championship (Wrestling Era)

## Intercontinental Championship

The **Intercontinental Championship** is a secondary Championship on the Raw Brand. Finn Balor is the current Intercontinental Champion, who beat The Miz at the Extreme Rules PPV in June, Week 1.

### History

WWF North American Heavyweight Champion Pat Patterson became the inaugural champion on September 1, 1979. It was said he had unified his title with the South American Heavyweight Championship, in a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, although both the tournament and South American Championship were entirely fictional.

On April 1, 1990 at WrestleMania VI, Intercontinental Champion The Ultimate Warrior defeated WWF ChampionHulk Hogan to win the world title, albeit the Intercontinental Championship was vacated (for the first time in the title history) soon after. Mr. Perfect would then go on to win a tournament to crown a new Intercontinental Champion.

On October 17, 1999, Chyna became the only woman to hold the Intercontinental Championship by defeating Jeff Jarrett at No Mercy. Following the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF) purchase of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in March 2001, the title was unified with the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series, causing the United States Championship to become inactive. Then-United States Champion Edge defeated then-Intercontinental Champion Test.

In 2002, after the first brand extension had begun and the WWF was renamed to WWE, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff began unifyng his brand's singles championships. On July 22, 2002, he announced that the Intercontinental Championship would be unified with the European Championship in a ladder match, which saw then-Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam defeat then-European Champion Jeff Hardy. On August 19, 2002, Bischoff made a six-minute gauntlet match for the Hardcore Championship, with the winner facing Van Dam in a second unification match the next week on *Raw*. Tommy Dreamer successfully retained his title in that match, but lost to Van Dam in a hardcore match the next week. As a result of the victories over Hardy and Dreamer, Van Dam is regarded as the last European and Hardcore champion in WWE history; these were his first and fourth reigns with those respective titles. On September 30, 2002, Bischoff scheduled another unification match, which would unify the Intercontinental Championship with the recently created Raw-exclusive World Heavyweight Championship. The match took place at No Mercy the following month and saw then-World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeat then-Intercontinental Champion Kane, making him the Raw brand's sole male singles champion.

Over Bischoff's objections, Raw Co-General Manager Stone Cold Steve Austin reactivated the Intercontinental Championship on the May 5, 2003 episode of *Raw* and declared any former champion on the Raw roster eligible to enter a battle royal at Judgment Day for the title. Christian won the battle royal to win the championship and restore a secondary singles title for Raw wrestlers to compete for. Eventually, WWE would do the same thing for SmackDown and created a separate set of titles for that brand; for its secondary title, SmackDown reactivated the United States Championship that had been unified with the Intercontinental Championship in 2001, placing the WWE name on it while claiming the lineage of the old WCW title of the same name (much as they did with the Cruiserweight Championship when that became WWE exclusive).

On October 2, 2011, at Hell in a Cell, Cody Rhodes introduced a modified version of the classic championship belt design with the white strap, with an added modern WWE "scratch logo" and other embellishments. The first brand extension would end on August 29, 2011, and the title could be defended on both *Raw* and *SmackDown*. On August 18, 2014, the Intercontinental Championship belt, along with all other pre-existing championship belts in WWE at the time, received a minor update, replacing the long-standing scratch logo with WWE's new logo originally used for the WWE Network. On May 31, 2015, the championship was contested for in an Elimination Chamber match for the first time.

In July 2016, WWE reintroduced the brand extension; during the 2016 draft, then-Intercontinental Champion The Miz was drafted to SmackDown. Just days later, he successfully defended the title against Raw draftee Darren Young at Battleground, making the title exclusive to SmackDown.

The Miz held the Intercontinental Championship at the start of The Wrestling Era, losing it to Finn Balor at the Extreme Rules PPV on June Week 1.