The Day The WWE Intercontinental Title Died

If you're looking to pinpoint one precise day that the Intercontinental Championship died, it's hard to look past October 20, 2002 - the date of the '02 edition of WWE's No Mercy PPV.

By this point, we'd already long seen the Intercontinental Title passed around with as much frequency as a bag of cocaine in an '80s dressing room, but WWE went one further and gave the ultimate F-U to the title by retiring it. That retirement came in a winner-takes-all bout between World Heavyweight Champion Triple H and Intercontinental Champion Kane.

As has so often been the case - especially during this Reign of Terror period - it was the Game who emerged victorious at No Mercy, with the Intercontinental Championship then being rendered inactive. What had once been one of the most sought-after pieces of gold in the entire industry, with some of the business' greatest ever matches tied to it, was now so much of an afterthought that WWE decided they'd be better off just completely removing the belt off the table.

It's of course a subjective matter when looking at an exact moment when the IC Title lost its value and fans completely stopped caring about the belt - with individual fans having their own viewpoint on this topic - but retiring the championship by having it assimilated by the World Heavyweight Championship is undoubtedly one of the darkest days in the history of this once-prestigious title.

If WWE cared so little about the Intercontinental Championship that they thought they'd be better off without it, why should fans give a solitary, single sh*t about this belt ever again?