Ranking All 21 WWE WrestleMania Intercontinental Title Matches

It used to be that the Intercontinental Championship would be afforded a glamour position every WrestleMania. As the belt that was fought over by prospective future WWE Champions, the IC title was worth a prominent spot when the big card rolled around. Once WWE officially adopted the World Heavyweight Title to fortify the brand split, the Intercontinental Championship began to increasingly lose its value. Since WrestleMania 18 in 2002, the belt has only been defended at WrestleMania on four occasions, one of which was a pre-show bout. Gone were the days of the Intercontinental strap being the 'workhorse' belt. Instead, the champion would often be inserted into multi-man ladder matches or battle royals that he wouldn't win. Hell, the champions lose enough non-title matches on free TV, so what's another run at playing cannon fodder on wrestling's biggest stage? The apparently-forthcoming match between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for the belt at WrestleMania 32 would be a step in the right direction for the championship, unless it's relegated to the WrestleMania pre-show. In which case, angry fans will demand that everyone else get #CancelWWENetwork trending, but they themselves would never think of cancelling said service. Because they have NXT to watch, damn it. In any event, here are the previous 21 Intercontinental bouts from WrestleMania ranked, from worst to best.

21. Rocky Maivia Vs. The Sultan (WrestleMania 13)

If you've never seen The Rock as 'Rocky Maivia', stop what you're doing and pull this match up on WWE Network. That guy you see trying to pull off 'babyface fire' from 1981, while running through an elementary moveset, is the same man that would one day conquer both professional wrestling and Hollywood with endless pizzazz. Not that you could tell from watching this dull match. Rock and Sultan (Rock's cousin Rikishi playing a brawny sheik) assembled the most vanilla of matches you could have seen in 1997, let alone the previous era that it was ripped from. The Honky Tonk Man burying Rocky on commentary is pretty much the only thing lively and interesting about the entire match.