WWE Intercontinental Title Match Set For Next Week's SmackDown
Nakamura to defend IC title against Zayn for first time since September.
After a devious sneak-attack on Friday Night SmackDown, Sami Zayn got himself a shot at finally reclaiming his Intercontinental Championship, with a title match set for next week's program against champ Shinsuke Nakamura.
Zayn was hosting his podcast In-Zayn in the ring with guests Nakamura and Rick Boogs, with the IC champ taking a swipe at Sami about Johnny Knoxville. Zayn mocked Boogs, which prompted the ax man to respond, but when he grabbed the mic, he was electrocuted and fell to the mat. Shinsuke went to check on him, allowing Sami to nail a Helluva Kick to fell the champion.
Surprisingly, while the United States Championship has been defended fairly regularly, the same can't be said for SmackDown's secondary title. Next week's title match will be Nakamura's first televised Intercontinental Championship title defense since September, more than four months ago. In fact, that September defense has been the only time he's put the title on the line since winning the strap in August. Guess the old "champion must defend their title every 30 days" stipulation doesn't apply to Shinsuke.
It's really sad to see what was once known as the workhorse title be little more than a worthless prop for half a year rather than being used to elevate someone - anyone. Just giving Shin some successful defenses would be acceptable to this.
Zayn held the IC title twice in 2020, losing it at year's end to Big E. Interestingly enough, when Nakamura held the Intercontinental Championship for the first time in 2019-20, Zayn was serving as his mouthpiece/manager.