Since 1979, the Intercontinental Championship has been one of the most prestigious titles not only in WWE, but in all of professional wrestling.
Welcome to part four of our Wrestlemania 33 preview series! And today, we are going to be taking a look at yet another Smackdown LIVE! title match, this of course being the WWE Intercontinental Title. The match will feature Dean Ambrose squaring off against Bar0n Corbin. Ambrose defeated The Miz to win the Intercontinental Title, and Corbin has essentially been after Ambrose ever since.
It has been a highly heated rivalry between these two NXT stars. Most of the time, the brawls spiral into the backstage area, including a month ago when Corbin attacked Ambrose backstage, and used a forklift against him.
Surprisingly, despite the intensity of this rivalry, the match is a standard title match, with no additional stipulations involved. Possibly this is because of all of the other “special” matches featured throughout the Wrestlemania 33 card. There also is two days before the big show, so WWE still has the chance to add a “Street Fight” or “No Holds Barred” stipulation to the title match.
Ambrose has honestly struggled to be a solid IC champion, especially compared to his predecessor. Corbin, meanwhile, has begun to garner the attention of the WWE fans by putting on entertaining matches and actually be impressive on the mic. Pitting these two against each other is a smart decision by the writers, as they build off each other very well.
Will this be a show-stealing match come Wrestlemania time? It’d be hard to go THAT far. But this match does have the pieces in place to set the tone for the rest of the show, as it looks to be a “middle-of-the-card” match. If Corbin were to win his first WWE title, this Sunday would be the ideal night to have it happen.
