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List of WWE Intercontinental Champions: The largest wrestling company in the world, WWE has been around for almost 45 years now. Started off as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC), WWE has been renamed multiple times over the years, such as World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in 1963, World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979, to finally, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002. Over the course of its history, WWE has launched, repackaged, renamed and discontinued multiple championships. However, the Intercontinental Championship is the one title that has been with the company for almost its entire life and has always been the badge of honour despite being named as a mid-card title.
Holding the Intercontinental Championship has been seen as the gateway for future World Championship reigns. Although, in recent years, fans were witnessing title reigns for a very small duration, which was making the somewhat less prestigious. But then came Gunther who won the title and broke all the records with it, making it once again one of the most coveted championships in WWE. Take a look at the top 5 longest reigning WWE Intercontinental Championship reigns.
Considered one of the most dominant WWE superstars in the 80s, WWE Hall of Famer Don Muraco holds the record for the fifth-longest WWE International Championship reign with his incredible 384-day reign during his second tenure with the title. Muraco defeated Pedro Morales on January 22, 1983, to start his historic IC title reign. During his title reign, Muraco fought with multiple future WWE Hall of Famers such as Barry Windham, Bob Buckland and Rocky Jhonson before finally dropping the title to another legend in the making, Tito Santana, on February 11, 1984. Apart from having a historic IC title reign, Muraco was also the first-ever WWE King of the Ring winner.
While the fifth-longest IC title reign ended with Tito Santana’s victory, the fourth-longest IC title reign of “Macho Man” Randy Savage began when he defeated Tito Santana on February 8, 1986. Randy went on to fight the likes of Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino and George “The Animal” Steele over the course of his 414 days title before having one of the greatest wrestling matches of all time at WrestleMania 3 against Ricky “The Dragon Steamboat,” who after 19 near falls finally pinned Randy on his 20th attempt to end his 14 months long IC title reign.
One of the most popular Puerto Rican wrestlers from the 1980s, Pedro Morales holds the record of the third-longest WWE Intercontinental Championship reign in the history of the company when he held the title for 424 days. Pedro won the title when he defeated Don Muraco on November 23, 1981, and also lost the title to him on January 23, 1983, bringing curtains to his historic reigns. Muraco and Morales’s feud showed how important the IC titles used to be at that time. His list of names he defeated during his reign also includes Jimmy “The High-Fly” Snuka, Bob Orton Jr and Superstar Billy Graham. He was inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in the class of 1995.
If any upcoming wrestler wants to learn how to be colourful, charismatic, sweet and still be able to portray the role of a heel, he just needs to watch the videos of The Honky Tonk Man. Apart from being an absolute genius in the ring and on the mic, Honky Tonk Man also held the record of longest reigning WWE Intercontinental champion of all time for 35 years before the record was broken in 2023. Honky Tonk Man’s historic reign began on January 13, 1987, when he grabbed the bottom ropes to pin the then-champion, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, to win the title. Honky Tonk Man was supposed to play the role of a transitional champion, but he went on to hold the title for the next 454 days and become the then longest reigning Intercontinental champion. His historic title reign finally came to an end in a rather anticlimactic manner when, on August 29, 1988, during the Summerslam PLE, where he lost the title in just 31 seconds.
In recent years, the Intercontinental Championship witnessed the loss of prestige, so much so that the title was not even defended on WrestleMania 38, as it became a mere showpiece. Superstars like Miz and Dolph Ziggler had some incredible matches for the title but could only do so much for the title until on June 10, 2022, episode of Raw, when Gunther defeated Ricochet to win the title and went on to have the record-breaking 666 days reign with the title, breaking Honky Tonk Man’s 454 days record to become the longest reigning WWE Intercontinental champion of all time. Gunther defeated the likes of Sheamus, Miz, Rey Mysterio, Jey Uso and many more before finally dropping the title to Sami Zayn at WrestleMania 40 on April 8. By the time Gunther dropped his title, he had not only established himself as a top star of the company but also brought the prestige that the IC title once held back to it.
