It's the Intercontinental Championship World Tour!

A belt to be defended... INTERCONTINENTALLY!
Photo Credit: Midwest Wrestling

Jason Mann and I were having a layered Twitter conversation Saturday as we are wont to do. Somehow, we centered around the idea of the Intercontinental Championship not being defended enough on South American soil and then the assertion that it was Intercontinental not just to the Americas, but to the entire swath of continents as well. This led to Jason coming up with a brilliant idea, that the IC Champion should do an all-continent challenge to "legitimize" his claim to the belt. Although Jason was the idea man, I'm here to flesh that shit out. Presenting the Intercontinental Intercontinental Championship Challenge, done Mortal Kombat gauntlet style. Okay, maybe not MK style since there hopefully won't be any fatalities. Anyway, here goes:

Australia: Tama Williams

Outback Jack is retired, and so are the Kangaroos. The most notable wrestlers from Down Under are women, and while I would totally put a healthy Madison Eagles or Kellie Skater in this in a heartbeat, this is WWE we're talking about. Therefore, sticking with the men, I'm going with clearly the most talented guy I've seen from Australia, Tama Williams. He was the standout guy on Team Australia at King of Trios last year on his own merits (not just cuz the other two were less than impressive either). Although he's clearly here for the easy decision, I think he'd be formidable enough to turn a few heads here.

South America: Ezekiel Jackson

Big Zeke has held the IC Title before, but since losing it, well, his strategic bodyslams have not done him a lot of good. The Guyanese Goliath is on a very short list of viable South Americans who could compete in this thing without crossing the MMA streams with shuffling in a Gracie (bad) or painting someone in green body paint and outfitting them in an orange fright wig to approximate Blanka from Street Fighter (even worse). So yeah, there's that.

Europe: Antonio Cesaro

Sure, there are a ton of English/Irish/Scottish/Welsh blokes who could've been brought in here, but how many of them are Very European, huh? Cesaro would add style, panache and muscle to the proceedings and would be a very tough out, even though his WWE career is still in its infancy. As a consolation prize though, he can keep the European Championship.

Antarctica: The Yeti

Who cares if when he debuted, he was clothed in mummy wrap? He's a goddamn snow monster, and Antarctica is full of said white stuff. Besides, it's not like he'd be the first retconned wrestler to make an appearance for any wrestling company whatsoever.

North America: Christian/Cody Rhodes

It would all depend on who held the title after Money in the Bank, and either guy would be pretty hellacious in this spot. With Christian, you get the wily, cagey veteran presence who will challenge and push whomever it is going up against him. With Rhodes, it's the youthful athleticism and the blatant disregard for the rules that give him the edge. Either way, this one would definitely be a danger spot for completing the gauntlet unscathed.

Asia: Keiji Mutoh

If Christian is cagey and wily, then the Great fucking Muta is a sage. Yeah, I could've gone with Yoshi Tatsu here, but we're in the rare air, and if this is just full of underutilized WWE ethnics, then it's not much of a challenge, is it? Mutoh brings a full arsenal to the ring, including the legendary poison mist and the proper way to do a goddamn Shining Wizard. He's the perfect penultimate challenge on this list.

And for the grand finale, of course there was only one choice to go with, greater than everyone else on this list combined...

Africa: The Great Power Uti

This is a real challenge. This would be like if you had to defeat Goro, Kintaro AND Motaro at the end of MK, but your health bar could only take one hit, and no matter what, even if you hit all three of them in the nuts in rapid succession, it wouldn't do much damage. Seriously, beating Uti would be an accomplishment in and of itself. The only problem? If he were to lose, ESPECIALLY on US soil, we'd have an international incident. I mean, we're talking all out war from Nigeria, and not just in the form of scam e-mails from "princes" with money tied up in bank accounts. In fact, maybe we should just slot Akeem the African Dream in here and hope the backlash from the NAACP isn't as deadly as the response would be from Nigeria.