Tuesday, March 19, 2024
EditorialWWE WrestleMania 31: Who Should Win the Intercontinental Championship Match?

WWE WrestleMania 31: Who Should Win the Intercontinental Championship Match?

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The card for this year’s WrestleMania is far from finalized, but it’s beginning to shape up rather quickly and soon enough, we will know all of the matches scheduled for the big show.

One match that WWE is being somewhat coy about (for some reason) and not making as official as it seems is the ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, which so far only has two of the many participants announced: R-Truth and the defending champion himself, Bad News Barrett.

Despite WWE’s hesitation to announce the rest of the crew, it’s blatantly obvious that at the very least, it will involve the likes of Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, Daniel Bryan and Luke Harper, as evidenced by their interactions surrounding the belt as of late.

For the most part, that’s a rather illustrious group of people to be fighting for the title. With all those options to choose from, who should WWE pick to exit WrestleMania with the belt for real, as opposed to just stealing it temporarily?

R-Truth

First off, let’s rule out R-Truth completely. His inclusion in this match is astonishing to begin with, considering how he has done almost nothing of note in 2014. One would think that his spot would be better served going to someone more important to the roster who is instead just in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, such as Ryback or even the two members of The Authority without a match so far, Big Show and Kane.

If someone like R-Truth were to win, it would devalue the title, which has been on an upward swing of momentum. Having the title won’t give him a bump—it will just be a setback. Therefore, he’s out of the running. Sorry, Truth, but at least you won’t have to climb the ladder, what with your supposed fear of heights and all.

Daniel Bryan

Can we all just agree that Daniel Bryan is above the belt and move on? I think so.

Luke Harper

Luke Harper is a bit of an enigma at the moment, as he was on a roll before Survivor Series when he originally won the Intercontinental title, but turned that ascent into a nosedive. Since then, he’s been unable to recover and before this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, even appeared to be as damned on the card as Erick Rowan seems.

Two factors that hurt Harper outside of this period of inactivity are that the incumbent champion is a heel (and infrequently do heels drop the belt to other heels) along with Harper’s character. The guy isn’t the most vivacious character with a ton of depth to him if you look at the roster.

Harper isn’t lacking in talent, but I have a feeling it would come off very underwhelming to most of the audience if he were to be the one to come out on top here instead of several other options.

Dean Ambrose

Poor Dean…he’s so over with the crowd and he’s so fun to watch, but WWE just can’t seem to let him win a match. This guy has been losing every single match that has any importance to it for almost a year straight. Why is that? Does WWE have such confidence in him that they think the losses won’t damage his career or do they have such strong hesitations to push him and keep reeling it back?

One way or another, it would be a big boost to Ambrose if he were to win the title here. That would help get him back on the right track and heal some of the damage done to him over the past few months. Ambrose isn’t on the same level as Bryan where it would be somewhat beneath him to hold the title for a lengthy enough reign, but he’s at a level where he will be wrestling on every event anyway, so why not just give him the belt?

The one downside to this in the grand scheme of things is that it might put an extra check mark in a column that doesn’t need it while taking away from another that does. To put it more directly, Ambrose can create a feud out of his promos, while others could use (or may even require) the crutch of structuring a program around the title defense. Do you hope that the other matches at Extreme Rules and onward can be significant on their own or do you take the more balanced approach and pass on Ambrose yet again?

Dolph Ziggler

The Showoff is exactly what the Intercontinental Championship should hover around. He’s a big enough star to give it the right amount of juice as far as credibility is concerned, but he’s also the workhorse that can be trusted to deliver quality matches week in and week out. At this point in his career, giving Ziggler any championship doesn’t come off as a bad idea. The guy can make it seem believable that he wins it due to his heart and determination on top of his in-ring skills and he’s popular, so you can depend on him to be cheered for winning.

There’s almost no reason for Ziggler not to win the title at WrestleMania as a sort of reward for being passed over for the Royal Rumble as well as for his efforts at Survivor Series and onward. This man is the predominant reason why the angle with The Authority was able to stay alive with Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan out due to injury and that shouldn’t be ignored. While many people may root for Daniel Bryan to win this match, those same people would likely be more than happy with a Ziggler win and may just get to see that happen.

Bad News Barrett

Barrett is in a rough patch, and it is a shame that it has come to this. When he returned from injury, WWE had an opportunity to turn him babyface and go with the flow. Just as they did with The Miz several years ago, they ignored this, kept him a heel and missed the boat. The Miz would eventually turn face a few months later when it was too late, floundering around until he turned heel once more and started the reparation process. This could happen to Barrett by SummerSlam and would probably have the same results.

To circumvent that, WWE needs to be careful with how they book him. Losing to people like Sin Cara—who doesn’t even get a push out of it to justify the loss—make Barrett look like an unimpressive champion. Therefore, to make up for this blunder, Barrett should retain the title and have his WrestleMania moment. He’s clearly not going to hold the belt forever and he could even possibly drop it at Extreme Rules, but a win at WrestleMania can go a long way if it isn’t completely ruined with what follows it (such as what happened to Cesaro after his victory in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal last year).

With the way WrestleMania has been booked so far, it’s obvious that this is a card built around Reigns/Lesnar, Sting/Triple H, Cena/Rusev and Wyatt/Taker with everything else being somewhat of an afterthought that is hastily (and somewhat shoddily) coming together. The Intercontinental Championship ladder match is no exception to that, but it doesn’t need to result in a finish that is as pointless as what we saw for the majority of what transpired at Fastlane. WWE needs to take the time to sit down and think about what direction they want these particular men to go in 2015 and how the title can be used as a tool to get to that endgame. If that means that Barrett retains or the title changes hands to someone like Ziggler, Ambrose or even Bryan, so be it, but while WWE can count on the talent of these men to deliver in this match, they’ll have to depend on their own creative skills to ensure that what comes after doesn’t render it all moot.

Who are you hoping to see walk out of WrestleMania with the belt? Do you think anyone else such as Sheamus might be added to the match? Tell us your predictions and booking ideas in the comments below!

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