10 Awful Championships WWE Doesn't Want You To Remember

4. Intercontinental Tag Team Championship

Antonio Inoki IWGP title
Prensa Libre

Imagine WWE introducing a new championship, then discarding it six months later after one title reign.

That's exactly what happened in 1991, when WWE's working relationship with the Universal Wrestling Association meant the creation of the Intercontinental Tag Team Championship. Unlike the fictional tournament for WWE's singles Intercontinental belt, the story behind these straps actually makes sense.

The UWA was based in Mexico, but had a deal with New Japan Pro-Wrestling to run shows in Japan; these titles were actually intercontinental.

What sounded like a good idea quickly fell into the mistakes category. Perro Aguayo and Gran Hamada won the titles at some point, in some place, against some wrestlers. Nobody really knows. The records only show a date of January 7, 1991...

Coincidentally, Aguayo and Hamada feuded over WWE's Light Heavyweight Championship during the 1980s too; if there was a trophy for adding prestige to belts WWE pretends never existed, they'd have won that as well!

Anyway, the reason these belts got binned is simple: WWE ended its working relationship with the UWF. Any belts under their name were quickly returned to the United States and either repackaged or retired.

The UWF might've seen this coming. While still holding the WWE belts, Aguayo and Hamada won the UWA World Tag Team Championship at a house show in Tokyo. There's a record of them defending the UWA belts, but not the WWE ones.

Whatever WWE's intentions were, the Intercontinental Tag Team Championship was a stretch too far. Don't expect to see them make a return.

Contributor

When I'm not trying my hardest to visit all 50 U.S. states, I'm listening to music from the 80s, watching TV from the 90s, and reminiscing about growing up in the 00s. I'm currently living in Melbourne, Australia so WWE premium live events are on Sunday afternoons for me; the absolute dream.