20 Longest WWE Intercontinental Title Reigns

Over the last several years, the WWE's Intercontinental Championship has often been labelled a 'hot potato' and a title that had little to no value or prestige. This is a championship that was at one point seen as near-enough equal to the then-WWF World Heavyweight Championship, with performers such as Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat and Bret Hart making the belt seem just as important as the WWF Title held by the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Ric Flair.

When Daniel Bryan and John Cena won the IC Title and US Title at this year's Wrestlemania, many wrestling fans were hoping that these two main event superstars would be given lengthy runs with their respective titles, bringing back the prestige and importance that these belts once had many moons ago.

Unfortunately, whilst John Cena and his United States Open Challenge is a true highlight of WWE programming at the moment, Daniel Bryan's time with the Intercontinental Championship was sadly cut short and the belt has been left vacant pending the upcoming WWE Network-exclusive Elimination Chamber show.

Here's hoping that whoever does end up with the title next manages to get a strongly booked, lengthy title reign like the one believed to be planned for Bryan initially.

With that said, here's the 20 longest Intercontinental Championship reigns since the belt's inception in 1979.

The official twentieth longest Intercontinental Title run in the WWF/WWE's history belongs to the Charismatic Enigma, Jeff Hardy.

The Team Xtreme daredevil racked up an impressive 190-day run with the IC belt during his singles career, having defeated the monstrous Umaga for the belt on a September 2007 episode of Monday Night Raw after sneaking an opportunistic pinfall on the Samoan Bulldozer.

What was so important about Jeff's longest IC Title reign is that it seemed like the moment that the WWE brass were finally giving the youngest Hardy brother a strong run towards the top of the card. Sure, there had been that ladder match with The Undertaker, but this seemed like Jeff was being geared for a solid rise to being a true main eventer.

Ultimately, Jeff Hardy would end up with a 60-day suspension for a second violation of WWE's drug policy, leading to him dropping the belt to Chris Jericho and seeing plans shelved for Hardy to win that year's Money in the Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania.

Jeff would eventually get his career back on track for a while, going on to win the WWE Championship and become a two-time World Heavyweight Champion.