[4] In 1985, the championship belt design changed, the centerplate now centered on the Atlantic Ocean, in a map including western Africa and Europe.

On April 7, 1989, the championship was first defended outside of North America, by Rick Rude against the Ultimate Warrior in Turin, Italy.

Perfect made the first Asian defense against The Texas Tornado at a WWF co-promotion with Super World of Sports in Tokyo, Japan.

[7] Shelton Benjamin made the first Australian defense on April 7, 2005, pinning Gene Snitsky in Brisbane.

[12][13] On October 17, 1999, Chyna became the only woman to hold the Intercontinental Championship by defeating Jeff Jarrett at No Mercy.

[17][18] As a result of the victories over Hardy and Dreamer, Van Dam is regarded as the last European and Hardcore champion in WWE history; these were his first and fourth reigns with those respective titles.

Christian won the battle royal to win the championship and restore a secondary singles title for Raw wrestlers to compete for.

[27] On October 2, 2011, at Hell in a Cell, Cody Rhodes reintroduced a modified version of Parks' 1985–1998 championship belt design with the white strap, with the modern WWE "scratch logo" and other embellishments.

[29] On the November 22, 2019, episode of SmackDown, Sami Zayn presented a new belt design to champion Shinsuke Nakamura.

The redesigned Intercontinental Championship returned to being on a black strap with an entirely new center plate with an irregular shape.

At the center of the oval is a diamond shape, representing a wrestling ring viewed from above, with the WWE logo over a globe.

The following is a list of dates indicating the transitions of the Intercontinental Championship between the Raw and SmackDown brands.

He suffered (kayfabe) injuries to both kidneys when he was attacked by the debuting Faarooq after winning an 11-man battle royal.

[32][34] A tournament was announced to crown a new #1 contender for William Regal's WWE Intercontinental Championship.

The following week, Kofi Kingston won a tournament to become the new champion, but Mr. McMahon reverted Long's decision.

[36] At Over the Limit, Kingston defeated McIntyre to win his second official Intercontinental Championship.

On May 12, 2020, the Intercontinental Championship was declared vacant after champion Sami Zayn elected to refrain from competing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[38] Only five men have held the title for a continuous reign of one year (365 days) or more: Pedro Morales, Don Muraco, Randy Savage, The Honky Tonk Man, and Gunther.

He won the title by defeating Jey Uso on the October 21, 2024, episode of Raw in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[40][41] Steve Cook of 411Mania wrote that "nearly anybody that was a big deal in WWE held the championship at some point.

Chris Jericho said that WWE promoter Vince McMahon told him that "nobody fucking cares about the Intercontinental Championship" after he asked to be placed in a match for the title at WrestleMania 29 in 2013.

"[47] Various commentators in 2014 and 2015, including from The Baltimore Sun, Rolling Stone, PWInsider, and Pro Wrestling Dot Net have pointed out that the Intercontinental Champion often loses non-title matches,[48][49][50][51] while Mike Tedesco of Wrestleview questioned how Intercontinental Champions losing too much is supposed to bring prestige to the title.

The championship has been featured in the main event of numerous episodes of SmackDown, and has even received two five-star ratings from Meltzer.

The first was Gunther defending against Sheamus at Clash at the Castle, while the second was Gunther defending against Sheamus and Drew McIntyre in a triple threat match at WrestleMania 39: Night 2, making it the first time Meltzer gave more than one five-star match rating for any main roster championship reign.