10 WWE Stars Who Saved The Intercontinental Title
If it weren't for these guys, where would the belt be now?
It's been nearly 40 years since WWE created the Intercontinental Championship, and in that time, the title has had a lot of ups and downs.
In recent years, the downs have become more prevalent than the ups, as men like Tito Santana, Ricky Steamboat, and Bret Hart have cast a legacy up to which Santino Marella, Luke Harper, and Curtis Axel have been unable to live.
The reason the title's fallen so badly is entirely due to bad booking. At one point, the Intercontinental Championship was considered a stepping stone to the WWE Championship, with IC Title feuds like Shawn Michaels versus Bret Hart and Triple H versus The Rock becoming world title programs down the line.
In recent times, though, the title has been passed around stars who are more famous for failing to reach the top of the card, like Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, and Bad News Barrett.
Then or now, the title has had problems, but there have always been great champions who have managed to redeem it. Hard work, excellent matches, and lengthy reigns have been able to restore prestige to the championship even during the worst of times, and those titleholders deserve credit.
Here are 10 wrestlers who saved the Intercontinental Title.
10. Randy Savage
When the Intercontinental Championship was created in 1979, the belt was given to Pat Patterson, one of WWE's best workers.
Over the next few years, the title passed to stars like Ken Patera, Don Muraco, and former WWE Champion Pedro Morales, but it was still distinctly a second-tier belt.
That all changed when Randy Savage captured the title from Tito Santana in 1986. For the first time, the championship was around the waist of a star who would later be the WWE Champion, and it showed.
Savage came into his own as a crazy, arrogant heel during his title reign, defending the belt against popular babyfaces like George "The Animal" Steele. Savage was a superstar, outshining everyone else in the company.
Savage's title reign even ended in spectacular fashion - at WrestleMania III, he lost the title to Ricky Steamboat in one of the most acclaimed matches in WWE history.
The bout was a classic that made the Intercontinental Title more important than ever before, and Randy Savage went down in history as one of the greatest champions of all time.