Intercontinental Title Vacated, Tournament Announced

Go grab the gold ring. Titles are one of the most important things in all of professional wrestling, if not the most important of them all. It is pretty rare for any major feud to not involve a title in some form or another because it is a simple formula: titles bring , prestige, power and money to the wrestlers and that is what they are competing to achieve. Now, another title is up for grabs.

Over the last forty plus years, the Intercontinental Title has been seen as the workers’ title. It has always been the title designed for the wrestlers who put on better matches rather than the big epic story matches. That’s not a bad thing, and it makes the title valuable in a different way. A lot of top level wrestlers have held it over the years, and now a new champion will be crowned.

As announced this week on WWE Backstage, Sami Zayn has been stripped of the Intercontinental Title and a tournament will be held to crown a new champion. There are no more details at the moment, though the brackets will be revealed on this Friday’s SmackDown. Zayn has not appeared since WrestleMania 36 on April 4 when he successfully defended the title against Daniel Bryan. This comes as Zayn has been staying at home due to health concerns over the spread of the Coronavirus.

The winner could join an exclusive club. Check out some of the best Intercontinental Champions:

Opinion: You might have guessed this was coming and it is far from the biggest surprise. Zayn has given no indication that he will be back anytime soon so why bother leaving the title on him and keeping it off television? The title can give someone something to do and that’s something WWE could use right now. It could help a few people out at once so let’s see what WWE has.

Who do you want in the tournament? Who will be the new champion? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!