Thank you Cody

Hello all

I apologize for not writing a blog for the last 2 weeks. My wife had a baby and he has been a hand full. With the extra time I have had, I have been trying to relax. But today I am back and ready to discuss something I have seen from this past week’s wrestling that has caught my eye.

Earlier in my blog I wrote that I thought the WWE should go do all they could to bring some prestige back to the intercontinental championship. Now you may be thinking “how can they give the title back the prestige it used to have”? Well to me that is very simple.

Like I said before in that early blog, the IC title used to be the title for the best wrestler in the company. Sure Hulk Hogan, and Macho Man wore the WWE title (and yes that should be the ultimate goal of every one who has ever stepped foot in a WWE ring). But back in the time when those guys were holding the WWE belt, the IC title was for the guys who could bring down the house. Shawn Michaels is known as the “Showstopper”. He earned that name during his numerous IC title reigns. Bret “the Hitman” Hart, showed the world and Mr. McMahon that he was capable of going on and wrestling anyone, and making them look, not good but great. He did all of this during his IC title reigns. And of course we could not forget who some consider the greatest superstar to never win the WWE title, Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect became a WWE Hall of Famer and a household name to all wrestling fans for the last 20 years because of his prowess as an IC champion.

So with all of this history and prestige what happened to the IC title? The belt has been worn by some guys who maybe were not as worthy of being champion as the guys I mentioned earlier. The IC belt was a spring board to the WWE title for most guys back when it held high prestige. But I believe that in the last 10 years there is a reason why the prestige of the belt has gone down.

I have looked at the list of men who have worn the belt, going back to 2001, and I have noticed that a lot of these guys are of the same championship mold as the 3 superstar IC champs I mentioned earlier. Of the 60 title reigns since the beginning of 2001, there are only 14 men who have not held the WWE or World Heavyweight title. And of those 14 men, 8 still have the opportunity to win the big one.

So why has the belt lost prestige? Could it be that there have been too many champions? Not necessarily so. From 1991-2001 there were 53 championship reigns. That is only 7 less than the past 10 years. Of those superstars 17 did not hold a title in the WWE (Jeff Jarrett went to WCW to become their world champion, before starting TNA and become their world champion). So what is it? I think it could have something to do with the lack of quality IC title matches. Looking back in the 90s you could point out a hand full of good IC title matches. Bret Hart vs. Ruddy Piper, Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect. Who could forget Shawn Michaels vs. Razor Ramon in a ladder match? And if you go back even further you would point out one of (if not) the greatest IC championship matches of all time. Savage vs. Steamboat at WrestleMania 3. I think we fans of this era are lacking the big time 30 minute IC title matches that we grew up with. In an earlier blog, I sang the praises of Kofi Kingston, and Dolph Ziggler because they had a classic IC title match, on TV no less. This unfortunately is the exception not the rule.

So with Cody Rhode re-introducing the new IC title, and having some very good matches lately I may add, I hope we are returning to a time when that IC title didn’t just mean one day you will be champion, but it meant every time you had a match, it was must see TV.