5 Times WWE crowned a new Intercontinental Champion when the title was vacant

#1 Elimination Chamber 2015

Ryback won the first-ever Intercontinental Championship Elimination Chamber match in 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.

Mark Henry was released from his chamber early.

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.