For more than four decades, the Intercontinental Championship has been viewed as WWE’s workhorse title. A launching pad. A proving ground. A “beacon of opportunity,” as Raw General Manager Adam Pearce once described it.
When WWE introduced the Women’s Intercontinental Championship in 2024, many slotted it neatly into the same mid-card framework. But according to Ettore Ewen, that label may already be outdated.
Speaking on “Raw Recap: WWE Now,” Big E argued that calling the women’s version a mid-card title undersells what it has quickly become.
“The lineage of this title, Becky has done so much incredible work to make this title meaningful,” Big E said. “When we have new titles, it really is about the way it’s introduced, it’s about the people who hold it, it’s about the rivalries we see. This thing has been hot. I feel like from day one, what we got to see with Lyra, what we got to see with everyone who’s held it and competed for it, even seeing Maxxine step up and have her best performances holding this title and competing for it, honestly, I think this is my favorite mid-card title right now. It almost feels disrespectful to call it a mid-card title because we’re seeing so many future Hall of Famers hold it, so many all-time greats hold it.”
Lyra Valkyria became the inaugural champion by defeating Dakota Kai in the tournament finals on Raw in January 2025. The title’s prestige grew quickly when Becky Lynch captured it at Money in the Bank.
From there, the championship picture only intensified. Maxxine Dupri scored a major upset victory in Madison Square Garden with assistance from AJ Lee, only for Lynch to reclaim the title weeks later.
That rapid series of high-profile names and meaningful storylines is precisely Big E’s point. Championships are not defined by placement on the card. They are defined by who holds them and how they are presented. If future Hall of Famers are building their legacies around a title, the mid-card label starts to feel like a technicality.
With Lynch set to defend the Women’s Intercontinental Championship against AJ Lee at Elimination Chamber, the lineage continues to stack recognizable names onto a belt that is barely two years old.
In wrestling, prestige is not inherited. It is constructed. And according to Big E, the Women’s Intercontinental Championship is being constructed at a main-event level, regardless of what category people try to put it in.
