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The WWE Intercontinental Championship is a professional wrestling championship contested in and owned by the American promotion WWE on the SmackDown brand. The title was introduced into WWE in 1979, which was known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) at the time. Pat Patterson, holder of the WWF North American Heavyweight Championship, was awarded the title (with the kayfabe explanation that he won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and unified the North American and South American titles).
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The Intercontinental Championship has been called the second most important championship in the company, after the WWE Championship. It has been active in WWE for the second longest period, but is the third oldest active title, behind the WWE Championship (1963) and the United States Championship (1975), the latter of which was acquired from World Championship Wrestling in 2001. In 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and the championship was renamed as the WWE Intercontinental Championship. As a result of the 2016 WWE draft, it is exclusively contested on the SmackDown brand.
Overall, there have been 78 different Intercontinental Champions. Chris Jericho holds the record for the most reigns with nine, The Honky Tonk Man holds the longest reign at 454 days. Only three more wrestlers – Pedro Morales, Don Muraco, and Randy Savage – have held the championship for a continuous reign of more than a year. The current champion is Dean Ambrose, in his second reign, after defeating The Miz at SmackDown Live on January 3, 2017.
Reigns
As of March 16, 2017.
Combined reigns
As of March 16, 2017.