We have a new longest reigning Intercontinental Champion of all time! Does that mean we have a new greatest Intercontinental Championship reign of all time too? Let's find out. These are the 10 greatest WWE Intercontinental Championship Reigns of all time.
00:00 - Start
01:11 - 10
02:02 - 9
02:59 - 8
03:55 - 7
05:05 - 6
06:04 - 5
07:14 - 4
08:16 - 3
09:28 - 2
10:37 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
00:00 - Start
01:11 - 10
02:02 - 9
02:59 - 8
03:55 - 7
05:05 - 6
06:04 - 5
07:14 - 4
08:16 - 3
09:28 - 2
10:37 - 1
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 You know what I miss?
00:01 I miss fictional tournaments held in Brazil to crown new champions.
00:05 Next time AEW wants to introduce a new belt, they better buy Pac an imaginary plane ticket
00:09 to Rio de Janeiro.
00:10 Anywho, this week seems like a good time to give the WWE Intercontinental Championship
00:15 its flowers.
00:16 Of course, I'm recording this before Raw, so maybe I'm preemptively celebrating the
00:19 first singles title win of Chad Gable, but hey, a broken record for Gunther would be
00:23 good too.
00:24 The workhorse title of the 90s finally returning to form has made for excellent television
00:29 in the WWE midcard for the first time in a long time, so let's celebrate it.
00:33 A reminder of course that this list is looking at specific reigns rather than a champion's
00:37 overall body of work, so for as iconic an Intercontinental Champion as Chris Jericho
00:42 is for instance, his 9 reigns averaging 34 days won't be appearing on this list.
00:47 Admin done, let's ride.
00:49 I'm Tempest Haling from PartsFunKnown, and these are the 10 Greatest WWE Intercontinental
00:53 Championship Reigns of All Time.
00:56 Also before we get on with this list, make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe,
00:59 and enable notifications to always on so you never miss a fun list just like it, and make
01:02 sure you check out the latest edition of Survival Series where everyone tries to name every
01:06 AEW Champion, and I mean every AEW Champion.
01:11 Number 10, The Miz's 5th reign.
01:13 This is the best you are getting.
01:16 Alright let me check my notes here on my overly large hand.
01:19 The great promo on Talking Smack, the match with Dolph Ziggler, the four way where Sami
01:23 KO and Cesaro carried the load.
01:26 To be fair, that is more than most Intercontinental title reigns of the era had, although it remains
01:30 true that the highlights of this reign were packed into three weeks of this six month
01:34 run that otherwise included nothing matches with Apollo Crews and Make Darren Young Great
01:39 Again era Darren Young.
01:41 That promo is very great, as is the match with Dolph Ziggler.
01:44 In fact, it is remembered enough to this day that it gets brought up all the f***ing time,
01:49 and it was enough to convince a generation that The Miz had actually restored honor to
01:53 the title.
01:54 This is the greatest Intercontinental title reign in the minds of all the people who weren't
01:57 alive to see Mr. Perfect hold the belt upside down, but this is a cultured list, so let's
02:02 continue.
02:03 Number 9, Randy Orton.
02:04 There weren't a lot of examples of the Intercontinental title actually elevating someone to main event
02:09 status post Attitude Era, but one of those examples was 23 and a half year old Randy
02:14 Orton who beat Rob Van Dam at Armageddon '03 to start his one and only reign as IC champ.
02:19 This was the "Evolution has all the belts" era of Raw, and the evolutionary that held
02:24 their belt the longest was Randle Cantavious Orton.
02:27 While the title wasn't the main focus of his run with Mick Foley up to WrestleMania
02:31 20, their match at Backlash over the IC belt is one of the very best matches in the title's
02:36 history.
02:37 Orton was also able to have very solid matches during this time with guys like Shelton Benjamin
02:41 and Chris Jericho, raising his stock tremendously by the time he lost the title to Edge at Vengeance
02:46 in an extremely underrated match.
02:48 It's not often these days that you see the Intercontinental Champion immediately go
02:52 for the world title upon losing the belt, let alone winning it, but Randy Orton pulled
02:56 it off with the best IC title reign of the 2000s.
02:59 8.
03:00 Mr. Perfect's Second Reign When Dave Bradshaw's era of wrestling fan
03:04 thinks of the Intercontinental Championship, one of the people who is holding that title
03:08 is Mr. Perfect.
03:09 Occasionally upside down, but I guess even Kurt Hennig couldn't be perfect 100% of
03:13 the time.
03:14 Had Perfect's two reigns as IC champ not been interrupted by a Texas Tornado, he would
03:18 have placed even higher on this list, but as it stands, this second reign of Mr. Perfect,
03:23 lasting 280 days, solidified him as a perfect Intercontinental Champion.
03:28 There weren't necessarily as many iconic title defenses on TV during this reign as
03:32 others on this list, but this was also a different era where house show business was a huge component
03:36 of WWE business, and many a fan went home from a WWE show remembering the Mr. Perfect
03:41 match on the show.
03:43 And of course, you cannot talk about this reign without mentioning the match in which
03:46 he lost the title to Bret Hart at Summerslam, a diamond in an era of duds, and a match that
03:52 defines the Intercontinental title to this day.
03:55 7.
03:56 The Rock's Second Reign I'll tell you right now, the Attitude Era
03:59 will not see a lot of love on this list.
04:01 In the five years between WrestleMania 13 and WrestleMania 18, the IC title changed
04:07 hands 42 times.
04:09 There were 11 in 1999 alone.
04:11 However, amidst a sea of short, unmemorable reigns, there was one that was long, featured
04:16 great character work, and elevated the champion to heights unmatched since, and that reign
04:22 belonged to The Rock.
04:23 Ol' Dwayne "Rock" Villa's first go-around with the belt was not great, the height of
04:27 the Die, Rocky, Die era, but his second reign was different.
04:31 The leader of the Nation of Domination, this is where The Rock came into his own, and any
04:35 reign that can boast the rise of one of the greatest superstars in the history of the
04:39 wrestling business must be pretty great.
04:42 This wasn't the era of regular stellar title defenses, but The Rock left his best match
04:46 as Intercontinental Champion for last, dropping the title in one of the early classic ladder
04:50 matches to Triple H at SummerSlam 98, a match so good it might even distract you from the
04:55 neon yellow ladders they used.
04:57 Just a few months later, The Rock was the WWE Champion, and a quick transition from
05:01 mid-card champ to world champ is a mark of a successful reign in my book.
05:06 6.
05:07 Pedro Morales' Second Reign It's time to cast our minds back to an era
05:11 of territorial WWF, when all title reigns started and ended in the Northeast.
05:17 Enter former WWWF Champion Pedro Morales, one of the most successful champions in the
05:22 company's history, becoming just the third Intercontinental Champion ever.
05:26 His first reign was also a contender for this list, but ultimately it would be his second,
05:30 clocking in at 424 days, that would put him among the greats.
05:34 The first ever Triple Crown Champion in WWE history, Morales' rivalry with Don Morocco
05:39 over the IC title was one of the most iconic feuds in the promotion during the early 80s,
05:44 with the two trading the belt back and forth for over two years.
05:48 Morales lent a lot of credibility to this new championship, and his 14 months with the
05:52 title between November of '81 and January of '83 remain some of the most successful
05:57 in the title's history.
05:59 Unfortunately, much of this reign is unavailable to rewatch today, but that doesn't make
06:03 it any less excellent.
06:05 5.
06:06 The Honky Tonk Man For almost three and a half decades, the Honky
06:09 Tonk Man's record as the longest reigning Intercontinental Champion has been unapproached.
06:14 Unless you count Santino and his honk-o-meter, I can't believe he didn't get there.
06:18 This is a weird one, because on one hand this reign has been spoken into WWE folklore as
06:23 the longest and greatest reign that there has ever been.
06:26 On the other hand, can you name me any iconic moments or matches from this reign besides
06:30 being squashed to lose the title at the first SummerSlam?
06:33 It is pretty hilarious to consider that just two months after Ricky Steamboat and Randy
06:37 Savage had one of the most legendary matches in WWE history over the Intercontinental title
06:41 at WrestleMania III, the title was strapped to the waist of a comedy heel who wouldn't
06:46 relinquish it for 14 whole months.
06:48 Hope you like that, Mania Classic, because you ain't getting any more.
06:51 There is no denying that this reign is one of, if not the most iconic IC title reigns
06:56 of all time, but is it as great as WWE would like you to believe it is?
07:00 Nah, I don't think so.
07:01 Maybe that's a blasphemous statement coming from the mouth of a naive millennial, but
07:04 there have been better.
07:06 Not many better, this is still top 5 all time after all, but we have four more reigns to
07:10 cover so Honky if you would please shake, rattle, and roll on out of here.
07:14 Number 4.
07:15 Razor Ramon's First Reign
07:17 Despite never climbing up the card to main event status after any of his four stints
07:20 with the Intercontinental title, the first to hold the title that many times by the way,
07:24 Razor Ramon still managed to become one of the premier IC champs of all time, but especially
07:30 of the 90s.
07:31 His latter three reigns helped solidify that status, but the first time Razor Blade Ramon
07:36 held the gold was his best.
07:38 Holding the title for just shy of 200 days, Razor's first reign began controversially,
07:43 winning a battle royal and beating Ric Martel to become the new champion after Shawn Michaels
07:47 was stripped of the title following a suspension.
07:50 However, while two belts floating around may detract from some reigns, in this case it
07:54 helped set up the defining match of Razor's reign, one of the defining matches of the
07:58 90s, and still one of the most famous matches ever held over the Intercontinental Championship,
08:04 the real Intercontinental Champion Ladder Match at WrestleMania 10.
08:08 Razor won, solidifying him as not only the undisputed IC champ, but one of the best IC
08:14 champs of all time.
08:16 Number 3.
08:17 Bret Hart's Second Reign
08:18 Another example of an otherwise perfect year-long reign being cut in half, this time by the
08:23 handsome, brave, and strong Mountie, Bret Hart would potentially be even higher on this
08:28 list had his first reign gone uninterrupted.
08:31 As it stands, he has to settle for being just the third best of all time.
08:34 I don't know how he will ever live with such a slight against him, but we move on.
08:38 Bret's second reign began in legendary fashion as he became one of the only WWE wrestlers
08:42 to ever pin Roddy Piper's shoulders to the mat at WrestleMania 8.
08:46 From there, his reign lasted until Summerslam, where he dropped the title to Davey Boy Smith
08:50 in Wembley Stadium in front of only 80,000 people.
08:54 Small potatoes really when compared to the much more impressive 81,000 fans from some
08:57 other show.
08:58 That match with Bulldog is very special for many reasons, whether it be Davey's temporary
09:04 amnesia for getting the entire match as they got in the ring, or the sheer quality of this
09:08 25-minute classic, or the incredible scope of such a match closing out Wembley Stadium
09:14 over the WWF title, or the fact that just a month and a half later, Bret was WWF Champion.
09:20 One of the greatest examples of the IC title being used to slingshot a wrestler up the
09:24 card there has ever, ever been.
09:28 Number 2.
09:29 Randy Savage
09:30 It took a lot to have classic matches in the WWF during the late 80s.
09:34 The promotion was fueled by showbiz machismo and enough cocaine to kill an elephant, and
09:38 what resulted was a very popular, very exciting version of pro wrestling that still lacked
09:44 the consistent in-ring wizardry that would become popular later.
09:47 But during that time, there was a 414-day reign that stood apart from the rest, and
09:52 that reign belonged to Randy Savage.
09:55 When Hogan was on top having the same match every night, Randy Savage was crafting a legacy
10:00 for himself, working with legends of the industry like Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, Tito
10:05 Santana and, of course, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Savage cemented himself as the
10:10 number two guy in the WWF with this reign.
10:13 And again, I would be remiss if I didn't properly give the deserved flowers to the
10:16 match where he finally dropped the title to Ricky Steamboat at WrestleMania 3.
10:21 Not that the match hasn't gotten enough flowers over the last 36 years, Christ, the
10:24 match looks like Florence Pugh and Midsommar at this point, but this really was the first
10:28 classic WrestleMania match, an honor that no other match will ever be able to lay claim
10:33 to, and an honor held by an Intercontinental Championship match.
10:37 And number one, Chad Gable.
10:40 Just in case, right?
10:41 Number one, Gunther.
10:42 Gunther's the best Intercontinental Champion of all time.
10:45 It's not even close.
10:46 And to think it could all have been thrown in the s*** if Vince McMahon was allowed to
10:49 have his way with the artist formerly known as Walter.
10:52 The man is simply one of the greatest pro wrestlers ever to grace the sacred mat, as
10:57 are many on this list, but what Gunther has been able to do with the IC title in this
11:01 decade, long past the days when the title was respected, is Hall of Fame worthy.
11:07 Whether it be his Clash of the Castle masterpiece with Sheamus, or his WrestleMania stealing
11:11 three-way with Sheamus and Drew, or any of the countless TV classics he has had over
11:16 the last 14 months, Gunther has made his name synonymous with the Intercontinental title
11:21 by simply being what the Intercontinental Champion was always said to be, the true workhorse
11:26 champion of the entire promotion.
11:28 There is no man more deserving of being the longest reigning Intercontinental Champion
11:32 in the title's history, unless Chad Gable actually did win the belt last night of course,
11:36 but even in that bizarre timeline, missing the record by a couple of days would do minimal
11:40 damage to the legacy of the Intercontinental Ring General.
11:44 Long may he reign.
11:45 And that's our list.
11:46 Please make sure of course that you like this video, subscribe and enable notifications
11:49 to always on so you never miss a fun list just like it.
11:51 And make sure you check out the latest edition of Survival Series.
11:54 Here's a clip.
11:55 Today, you will be trying to name every single AEW champion in reverse chronological order.
12:06 Well, champion.
12:07 Champion.
12:08 What?
12:09 Oh god, I had no idea you could be this sadistic.