The Intercontinental Title Needs Daniel Bryan

When I was a kid growing up in the eighties, the Intercontinental title meant that you were the next in line for the WWF championship, or in those days, the next to face Hogan. All the greats held the IC title and more often than not, it meant you were the best worker in the company. I’m not going to bore you with all the names. You know them already and if you don’t, Google it. Then it all seemed to change. I can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, maybe someone reading this can, but it happened. Could it have been the attitude era? Maybe. Could we blame Vince Russo? I’m sure someone can. Remember when even the European title meant a lot? Look back at that list of past champions. The fact of the matter is, the IC title no longer means you’re next in line. The IC title has lately been used as a way to silence the Internet fans. “Oh you guys love Dolph Ziggler? Here, we’ll make him Intercontinental champion, now shut up!” However, there seems to be a renaissance of sorts with the IC title, and it has me looking forward to the ladder match at Wrestlemania.

Now, I don’t want to be too hopeful that the WWE is going to bring the IC title back to prominence. They seemed to be doing that with the tag team division and succeeded, for a little while, but now it’s back to being somewhat stagnant. However, for arguments sake, let’s pretend that the 20 writers on staff are truly putting forth the effort. The current champion is Wade Barrett and he has been in a program with Dean Ambrose. Ambrose wanted to be IC champ after seeing some pictures on a wall at headquarters, so he too can get on the wall. I didn’t care about his reasoning, I just cared that he cared enough to want to win it. Since successfully defending it against Ambrose, Barrett has been dealing with his belt getting stolen by Ambrose and R-Truth. The WWE announced that there will be a ladder match at Wrestlemania for belt. Then this past Monday on RAW, Luke Harper and Dolph Ziggler added their names to the thieves list. These guys want the belt so bad so they’re willing to steal it? I love it!

There was something interesting that happened on RAW during the IC title segment. Dolph Ziggler grabbed the belt and climbed up a ladder and taunted Daniel Bryan with it. Bryan was standing on the announcer’s table on the other side of the arena. Ziggler pointed, said some words, Bryan would raise his arms for the ‘YES’ chant and the crowd followed suit. This seems to all but confirm that the rumored Ziggler vs Bryan at Wrestlemania, will be happening. It’ll just also include a few other guys and it’ll be for the IC title. This really couldn’t be happening at a better time. There’s a loud portion of fans who are angry that the WWE is forgetting about Daniel Bryan. So the WWE has a great opportunity to not only make them happy but to also bring the IC title back to prominence, simply put, Daniel Bryan must win.

Daniel Bryan is just the man to bring the IC title back, more than anyone else that is going to be in this match. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so glad that all these other guys would be willing to steal the title to get in the match, but they don’t have what Bryan has. Bryan is way more over than Ziggler & Co., and for Bryan to hold the belt, it means it’s not punishment anymore. If a guy like Bryan is IC champ, then guys like Orton wouldn’t feel like they’re being de-pushed if they were given the strap. Now, I don’t know for certain if Orton would, but judging by how the IC title has been handled over the last several years, I couldn’t blame him if he did. Hell, maybe with Bryan as IC champ, the belt holder will stop losing on TV so much.

I constantly defended Brock Lesnar’s number of appearances with the argument that the WWE would be able to use the time to elevate the other championships. Just think about what could happen on March 29 for a minute. At the end of the night, John Cena could be United States champion and Daniel Bryan could be Intercontinental champion. Crazy.

I do believe that this will not only heal the wound of Bryan not being in the main-event at Mania, but will also bring the IC title back to where it belongs, right under the Heavyweight championship. It will serve two purposes. Everyone will look at the IC title differently if they went with a star like Bryan. Now is the opportunity for the WWE to make the Intercontinental championship mean so much more, all that has to happen is…

Daniel Bryan must win.

-B

(As always, feel free to follow & tweet me your thoughts @spinitB or email me)