All 17 WWE Intercontinental Champions of the 2010’s So Far, Ranked
By Dalton Quix
Credit: WWE.com
12. Ryback
The Big Guy, Ryback, ended up holding the Intercontinental Championship in the 2010’s. His reign lasted 112 days and started when he won possibly the worst Elimination Chamber match in WWE history for the vacant title against Sheamus, Ziggler, R-Truth, King Barrett, and Mark Henry.
Even though it was not an ideal start to Ryback’s title run, the winning of the Intercontinental Championship seemed to be the beginning of a well overdue push for The Big Guy. He was over with the crowd with his “Feed me more!” chant, had the monster physique, and now he had the hardware to cement himself as a true Superstar on the main roster.
Ryback then became involved in a feud with Big Show and The Miz and managed to defeat both of them in a triple threat match at SummerSlam. He managed to defend his title once again against Big Show on RAW.
After that, he lost a match to Seth Rollins due to an interfering Kevin Owens, and that began a feud with KO. Kevin Owens went on to defeat Ryback for the title and retained the title throughout two rematches.
The Big Guy was definitely a credible champion, but a staph infection limited Ryback’s title defenses to less than 5 over the span of 112 days. So, that managed to take the Intercontinental Championship completely out of the spotlight, and The Big Guy did not even look like a strong champion with a lot of distractions and trickery involved in his triple threat feud with Big Show and The Miz.
After Daniel Bryan’s injury left the Intercontinental Championship out of the discussion, Ryback’s reign certainly did not help to get it back in there. So, Ryback finds himself at number 12 on the list.