The Five Greatest WWE Intercontinental Champions of All Time
Gunther's 666 days, Savage vs. Steamboat, Jericho's nine reigns: our pick of the five best Intercontinental Champions in WWE history.
The WWE Intercontinental Championship has changed hands 192 times among 95 different champions since Pat Patterson became the first titleholder on September 1, 1979, and Chad Gable holds it today after beating Penta at SummerSlam on August 2, 2026. We went through that whole lineage and picked the five Intercontinental Champions we rate above everyone else: Gunther, Randy Savage, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels and The Honky Tonk Man.
How we picked
Days held matter, but they did not settle the order by themselves. A long reign built on count-outs is a different thing from a long reign full of great title defenses, and a champion who kept losing and winning the belt back can still define what it meant. So we weighed three things for each wrestler: how long they held the title, how many times they won it, and the match people still think of first when their name comes up next to the belt.
Day counts below are calendar days between title changes. WWE's own records often come out a day or a few days shorter, mostly because many old title changes happened at TV tapings that aired later.
| Rank | Wrestler | Reigns | Combined days | Longest reign (days) | Defining match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gunther | 1 | 666 | 666 | vs. Sheamus, Clash at the Castle 2022 |
| 2 | Randy Savage | 1 | 414 | 414 | vs. Ricky Steamboat, WrestleMania III |
| 3 | Chris Jericho | 9 | 318 | 111 | Ladder match vs. Chris Benoit, Royal Rumble 2001 |
| 4 | Shawn Michaels | 3 | 406 | 202 | Ladder match vs. Razor Ramon, WrestleMania X |
| 5 | The Honky Tonk Man | 1 | 454 | 454 | vs. The Ultimate Warrior, SummerSlam 1988 |
1. Gunther: 666 days
Gunther, the Austrian wrestler born Walter Hahn in Vienna, beat Ricochet for the title on an episode of SmackDown in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on June 10, 2022. He was the first Austrian to win it. He did not lose it until Night 1 of WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia on April 6, 2024, when Sami Zayn beat him. That reign lasted 666 days, the longest single reign in the title's history and the longest combined total of anyone who has held it.
He is first because of how he spent those 666 days. Gunther defended the belt in matches that were often the best thing on the show. His defense against Sheamus at Clash at the Castle on September 3, 2022, in front of 62,215 people at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, drew a five-star rating from wrestling's most widely cited match critic. He got the same rating for beating Drew McIntyre and Sheamus in a triple threat on Night 2 of WrestleMania 39 on April 2, 2023. Along the way he also defended against Ricochet in a rematch, Shinsuke Nakamura, Rey Mysterio, Braun Strowman and Madcap Moss.
Chad Gable, the current champion, came closest to ending it. On Raw on August 21, 2023, Gable beat Gunther by count-out, which handed Gunther his first singles loss on the main roster but left him with the title. Gunther beat Gable in a rematch on September 4 and passed The Honky Tonk Man's mark of 454 days later that week, a record that had stood for 35 years. Gunther went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Damian Priest at SummerSlam in August 2024.
2. Randy Savage: 414 days
Randy Savage won the title from Tito Santana at the Boston Garden on February 8, 1986, in a rematch shown on WWF on NESN. He knocked Santana out with a steel object hidden in his tights, which tells you most of what you need to know about the character at that point. He defended it against George Steele at WrestleMania 2 on April 7, 1986, and beat Steele again in two more title matches in early 1987.
The reign is remembered for how it ended. Savage had injured Ricky Steamboat's larynx in an angle that ended with Savage dropping the ring bell onto Steamboat's throat from the top rope. Their payoff came at WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan on March 29, 1987, in front of a claimed crowd of 93,173 (later estimates put the real number around 78,000). The match had 19 two-counts. Steamboat won when Steele pushed Savage off the top rope and Steamboat reversed into a small package. It went close to 15 minutes, was named 1987's Match of the Year by several publications, and is still widely ranked among the best matches WWE has ever put on.
That loss ended a reign of 414 days, just short of 14 months. In 2013 WWE ranked Savage the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time, crediting him with bringing more credibility to the title through his performances. We have him one spot lower only because Gunther held it longer and had more great matches with it.
3. Chris Jericho: nine reigns
Nobody has won the Intercontinental Championship more often than Chris Jericho, who won it nine times between 1999 and 2009. None of the reigns was long. His best was 111 days, and his combined total is 318, which ranks 18th all time. The case for Jericho is that for ten years the title kept coming back to him, and many of the best matches on the WWE midcard in that decade were Jericho fighting for it.
His first win came against Chyna at Armageddon on December 12, 1999, after a feud that also produced a disputed double pin and a short period in which the two were treated as co-champions (WWE does not count that as a reign). He won it back at the Royal Rumble in January 2000 by beating Chyna and Hardcore Holly in a triple threat, and took it a third time from Chris Benoit on SmackDown in May 2000.
The defining match came at the 2001 Royal Rumble in New Orleans on January 21, when he beat Benoit in a ladder match for his fourth reign. He won it twice more from Rob Van Dam on Raw in 2002 and 2003, then beat Christian in a ladder match at Unforgiven in Portland, Oregon, on September 12, 2004 for a seventh title. That broke the record of six that Jeff Jarrett had held. He took an eighth from Jeff Hardy on Raw on March 10, 2008 in Milwaukee, and a ninth by beating Rey Mysterio in a No Holds Barred match at Extreme Rules on June 7, 2009.
WWE fans agree with putting him near the top. In a 2013 WWE poll they named Jericho the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time with 63% of the vote, ahead of Mr. Perfect, The Honky Tonk Man, Rick Rude and Pat Patterson. He also won the IWGP Intercontinental Championship in New Japan in 2019, which made him the first man to hold both titles with that name.
4. Shawn Michaels: three reigns, 406 days
Shawn Michaels won the title from the British Bulldog on October 27, 1992, at a Saturday Night's Main Event taping in Terre Haute, Indiana, and held it for 202 days before Marty Jannetty, his old Rockers partner, beat him on Raw on May 17, 1993. Michaels got it back 20 days later at a house show in Albany, New York.
In September 1993 he was stripped of the title. On television the reason given was that he had not defended it within 30 days; he had actually been suspended after testing positive for steroids. Razor Ramon won the vacant belt in a battle royal finish over Rick Martel, while Michaels kept carrying his own belt and calling himself the real champion. That dispute led to WrestleMania X at Madison Square Garden on March 20, 1994, where both belts hung above the ring in a ladder match.
Michaels lost it. Ramon pulled down both belts after 18 minutes and 47 seconds when Michaels got tangled in the ropes. The match got five stars from the same critic who loved Gunther's matches, won Match of the Year in a 1994 readers' vote, and is the match most often credited with making the ladder match a WWE staple. Michaels won the title for a third time from Jeff Jarrett at In Your House 2 in Nashville on July 23, 1995, and gave it up by forfeit in October after he was attacked outside a nightclub in Syracuse, New York. Combined, he held the title for 406 days, tied for 10th all time.
5. The Honky Tonk Man: 454 days
The Honky Tonk Man is the only wrestler on this list who made the belt famous by trying hard not to defend it. He won it from Ricky Steamboat on June 2, 1987, at a Superstars of Wrestling taping in Buffalo, New York, reversing an inside cradle and grabbing the ropes for leverage. The match aired on June 13. Since the title could only change hands by pinfall or submission, he got himself counted out or disqualified again and again to keep it.
It worked for 454 days, the longest reign in the title's history until Gunther passed it in 2023. Savage chased him for a while, and a title shot on Saturday Night's Main Event that October ended in a disqualification when the Hart Foundation interfered. Honky started calling himself the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time.
The ending is the most famous part. At SummerSlam at Madison Square Garden on August 29, 1988, Honky's scheduled challenger, Brutus Beefcake, was off the card with a storyline injury. Honky told the ring announcer to give him anyone. The Ultimate Warrior ran to the ring and pinned him in 31 seconds. We still rank the reign because it lasted so long that later champions were measured against it for more than three decades.
Honorable mentions
Pedro Morales held the title twice in the early 1980s for 619 combined days, second only to Gunther. The Miz has won it eight times, one fewer than Jericho, for 597 combined days. Don Muraco (541 days over two reigns) and Mr. Perfect (406 over two) both had strong cases. So did Bret Hart, who won the title from Mr. Perfect at SummerSlam 1991 and from Roddy Piper at WrestleMania VIII, and Razor Ramon, a four-time champion whose WrestleMania X ladder win sits right next to Michaels on any list of great Intercontinental title matches.
The title today
Chad Gable is in his first reign after submitting Penta at SummerSlam Night 2 in Minneapolis on August 2, 2026, three years after he took Gunther to a count-out but could not take his belt. His reign is only a couple of months old, so it is far too early to judge where it will rank.
Questions
Who has the longest Intercontinental Championship reign?
Gunther, who held the title for 666 days from June 10, 2022 until he lost it to Sami Zayn at WrestleMania XL on April 6, 2024.
Who has won the Intercontinental Championship the most times?
Chris Jericho, with nine reigns between 1999 and 2009. The Miz is next with eight.
Who is the current WWE Intercontinental Champion?
Chad Gable, who beat Penta at SummerSlam Night 2 in Minneapolis on August 2, 2026 for his first reign.
