20 Biggest Myths WWE Tells About Its History
13. Pat Patterson Won A Tournament In Brazil To Become First Intercontinental Champion
The Myth: Pat Patterson won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro to become the inaugural Intercontinental Champion.
The Truth: Almost everything about this story is a lie. Let's start at the beginning: in 1979, Pat Patterson was the reigning WWF North American Champion.
He had defeated a very young Ted DiBiase for the title, but there was no lineage to speak of. In fact, the title was just invented and given to Ted when he signed with the company four months earlier.
Perhaps in an attempt to give Pat (and the title) more credibility, on 1 September of ‘79 it was declared that Pat had won a tournament in Brazil, and, in the finals, unified his title with the WWF South American Championship.
He then vacated his North American Championship on the perfectly reasonable grounds that a two-continent championship outranks one of its constituent championships. It was won by Seiji Sakaguchi and retired shorly after.
Strangely, this did not free up the South American Championship to be won by Tiger Chung Lee or whoever, and WWE simply moved forward with the IC as its secondary title.