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With their Intercontinental Champion not in attendance for recent tapings, WWE announced on Tuesday night that Sami Zayn had been stripped of his championship.
Pointing to a need for the championship to be actively defended, WWE revealed that a tournament would begin on this week's edition of SmackDown to crown a new Intercontinental Champion.
The circumstances surrounding Zayn's inability to defend the title are certainly unprecedented. Never before has an Intercontinental titleholder been forced to surrender the crown as a result of the effects of a global health pandemic.
However, there have been several occasions in company history where WWE has had to come up with an intriguing way to determine a new Intercontinental Champion. This has typically been due to an injury to a reigning champion.
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Having been in existence for over 40 years, the Intercontinental title the promotion's second-oldest title, behind only the WWE Championship. To maintain this legacy, though, WWE has had to get creative at times. Even the first Intercontinental Champion was crowned in a unique fashion.
Here are five times that WWE has determined a new Intercontinental Champion previously.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article belong to the writer and doesn't necessarily represent Sportskeeda's stand.
#5 Fictional Tournament in Rio de Janeiro
The Intercontinental Championship first came into existence in 1979. On September 1 of that year, Pat Patterson - then the WWF North American Heavyweight Champion - was crowned as the first-ever Intercontinental champion.
Claiming that had won the "South American Heavyweight Championship" during a tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Patterson announced himself as the new, unified, Intercontinental Champion.
The problem here is that there was no such tournament in Brazil. Both the tournament - and the South American Heavyweight Championship itself - were entirely made up.
Patterson would lose the title (this time in an actual match) 233 days later. The reign was Patterson's only one as Intercontinental Champion. However, the WWE Hall of Fame member did win both the Hardcore and 24/7 titles decades after retiring as an in-ring performer.
Patterson's initial victory may have been a work of fiction, but the Intercontinental Championship that was created out of it has given us many memorable moments since.
#4 An actual tournament
The Ultimate Warrior enjoyed the most significant victory of his professional career when he defeated Hulk Hogan for the World Championship at WWE WrestleMania 6. His win, though, meant that he now held both two titles - as he was also the Intercontinental Champion at the time.
Not wanting to tie up both of its singles championships on one man, WWE arranged for Warrior to vacate the Intercontinental belt. To find a new champion, an eight-man tournament was set up.
Despite featuring Hall of Fame performers "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka and "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig, the tournament was a bit lacklustre.
After two of its first-round matches ended as draws, the tournament did not feature any semi-finals. Instead, Hennig and (other first-round winner) Tito Santana met in the final of a tournament that had just five matches!
At least the championship went to a respected performer, though. Henning is fondly remembered for his two reigns as WWE Intercontinental Champion.
Although the tournament was far from a classic, at least there is evidence that it happened - unlike the case of Pat Patterson first time around! Superstars such as Owen Hart and Faarooq won similar multiple-night tournaments to capture the Intercontinental Championship in the years that followed on WWE.
#3 A Battle Royal
WWE's most frequent solution to a vacant championship situation in recent times has been to put the belt on the line in a Battle Royal.
In terms of the Intercontinental Championship, the title was first contested in a Battle Royal setting in 1993. With reigning champion Shawn Michaels suspended, a multi-man over the top rope match was announced for the October 4 edition of RAW. The final two competitors would then meet for the vacant championship the following week.
In the end, Razor Ramon and Rick Martel were the last two superstars left in the Battle Royal. Seven days later, Ramon defeated Martel to win his first Intercontinental Championship.
Simpler, one-night Battle Royal matches have taken place to decide a new champion since though.
When the title was briefly retired in 2002, Christian won a Battle Royal at Judgment Day 2003 to win the revived championship. The Miz did the same at Battleground 2014 to claim the title, after Bad News Barrett dropped it due to injury.
In a scenario, where a champion is unexpectedly not available - a Battle Royal represents the quickest way to keep a title active. For this reason, it will always be something WWE consider when they need to change course at short notice.
#2 A One-Night Tournament
Due to the number of matches involved, one-night tournaments are rarely seen in WWE. However, they are even less frequent on television shows like RAW and SmackDown because of the number of commercial breaks that take place during the programs.
However, following an injury to then-champion Triple H, the vacant Intercontinental Championship was put on the line in an eight-man tournament on the October 12 episode of RAW.
All seven tournament matches took place in one night, as Ken Shamrock lifted Intercontinental gold for the only time in his career. Shamrock defeated Steve Blackman, Val Venis and X-Pac on his way to the championship.
With the fast-moving pace of RAW back in the Attitude Era, WWE was able to squeeze a full tournament into one show - mainly by ensuring that each match was kept short.
Given that WWE has five weeks of SmackDown episodes to fill before their next pay-per-view, it seems unlikely that they will try to pull off a whole tournament in just a single night this time around.
By giving each match in the tournament some proper time and focus on SmackDown, WWE can ensure that whoever wins the title gets a real boost from doing so.
#1 Elimination Chamber 2015
On the face of it, putting the vacant WWE Intercontinental Championship on the line in a May 2015 Elimination Chamber match seemed a good idea.
Daniel Bryan had recently forfeited the title due to injury, and a new champion needed to be crowned. Putting the title up for grabs in the famed Elimination Chamber should have provided a thrilling spectacle for WWE fans.
Unfortunately, it was not to be as things did not go according to plan for WWE. Ryback, Dolph Ziggler, King Barrett, R-Truth, Sheamus and Mark Henry were all entered in the bout, which marked the first time that the Intercontinental Championship had been contested in the structure.
The match started in typical Elimination Chamber fashion. However, when Barrett threw Ziggler into Henry's pod, things began to go very wrong.
The material used to the Elimination Chamber pods is supposedly bullet-proof glass. Once Ziggler hit Henry's pod, though, the front panel of the chamber simply fell off.
Henry, who was not due to enter the match until much later, had no idea what to do - and eventually decided to join the bout early. As Henry was not supposed to be part of the match at that time, many planned spots between the other participants were ruined.
The match was falling apart - and then things got even worse for WWE. Part of the story of the bout was that Sheamus was deliberately holding the door his pod shut, to avoid entering the match. However, the announcers completely missed this fact. Instead, they suggested that this door was just stuck.
With much of the match being a bit of a disaster, it was a relief to most when Ryback finally pinned Sheamus to end the bout. There has not been another Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Intercontinental title since. Given how the first turned out, it is not much of a surprise.
