8 Quickest Elevations From Midcard Titles To WWE Champion

8. The Rock - 77 Days

While the Attitude Era is one infamous for how much of a hot potato the Intercontinental Championship became, The Rock managed to have one of the all-time great IC Title runs during that most frantic of times.

At 264 days, The Rock's 1998 run with the IC strap stands as the longest reign of the past 30 years. The last person to surpass that number was Mr. Perfect, who clocked up 280 days as Intercontinental Champion after besting Kerry Von Erich on a November 1990 episode of Superstars of Wrestling.

What's also notable about the Great One's second Intercontinental Title run, is that it also fully sowed the seeds for the main event rivalry with 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin that was still to come.

To commence this reign, The Rock was handed the Intercontinental Championship when Austin was forced to vacate it. This lengthy reign concluded at SummerSlam '98, with Triple H taking the gold in an epic Ladder Match.

By then, everybody could see that The Rock was a true superstar waiting to explode, and the next step in that journey came 77 days later at the Survivor Series. There, the Deadly Game tournament ended with The Rock joining forces with the McMahons to screw Mick Foley - giving Rocky his first WWF Championship in the process.