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WWE: 5 Intercontinental Title feuds to watch while socially isolating

By Bruce Lee Hazelwood

Hall of Fame inductee Shawn Michaels attends the WWE 2011 Hall Of Fame Induction at Phillips Arena on April 2, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by George Napolitano/FilmMagic)
Hall of Fame inductee Shawn Michaels attends the WWE 2011 Hall Of Fame Induction at Phillips Arena on April 2, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by George Napolitano/FilmMagic) /
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With many of us in some sort of quarantine state, what better way to pass the time than watching some classic wrestling? In the next part of our week-long “Matches to Watch” series, I tweak the premise slightly to bring you “5 Intercontinental Championship feuds to watch” during quarantine.

In case you missed it, we here at Daily DDT are running a week-long series from different contributors on different matches they recommend watching during these quarantine times. Each contributor brings a different flavor and style in the matches they select and why.

(By the way, each match/feud should be available on the WWE Network.)

Rather than try and think of matches that aren’t already on their lists, after a bit of conversation with my colleagues I decided to provide you dear readers with five WWE Intercontinental Championship feuds to watch while you’re home.

The good thing about listing feuds is you’ll get more than one match and be able to relive the stories leading up to and through the final match in real-time. You may also pick up on some things in the matches you never saw before, particularly for more historical matches.

Yes, your five feuds may not (and probably aren’t) the five I pick and guess what? Not only is that fine, that’s awesome! The beauty of a series like this is we can all have our five that we pick through whatever criteria and (mostly) be justified in our selections.

Speaking of criteria, much like with my booms/duds and smacks/downs pieces, I prefer coherent storytelling with realistic stakes and contexts. Not every feud I select is going to be a technical masterpiece like Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect, or a furiously-paced and intense match like the ladder match at WrestleMania 31.

When it comes to realistic stakes and context, I want more than the “I’m evil for the sake of evil” heel (or the opposite for face). In championship feuds, the championship should be the stake and provide somewhat of a context for the feud.

What my selected feuds do have in common is storytelling that draws you in and makes you anticipate what’s going to happen next, not to mention the high-stakes of becoming Intercontinental Champion.

Before I proceed, here’s a quick sampling of IC title matches you can watch if you don’t want to invest the time and/or emotion into a feud:

  1. Mr. Perfect (c) vs. Bret Hart (SummerSlam, 1991)
  2. Bret Hart (c) vs. The British Bulldog (SummerSlam, 1992)
  3. Jeff Jarrett (c) w/ The Roadie vs. Shawn Michaels (In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks, 1995)
  4. The Rock (c) w/ Mark Henry vs. Triple H w/ Chyna (SummerSlam, 1998)
  5. Bad News Barrett (c) vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Luke Harper vs. Stardust vs. R-Truth (WrestleMania 31, 2015).

Also, I’ll be going in chronological order beginning with the earliest. Without further ado…

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