10 Forgotten WWE Intercontinental Champions
Perhaps we should call them 'Test runs'?
3. Albert
Much like we saw with Billy Gunn earlier, Albert was a perennial tag team guy that WWE desperately wanted to make into a singles star (to no avail).
Their earliest attempt came in the summer of 2001, with Albert recently emancipated from the rubbish X-Factor group (which also featured X-Pac and Justin Credible).
In his first major singles match, he beat Kane for the Intercontinental Title in a No Disqualification match on the June 28 episode of SmackDown.
To be fair to Albert, he actually did defend the title regularly for the 25 days that he held it.
This included meetings with The Undertaker, Edge and Rhyno on Raw and SmackDown, as well as bouts with Credible and Tommy Dreamer on Sunday Night Heat.
Once he lost the title to Lance Storm the day after the Invasion pay-per-view, he never got another sniff. WWE were in a transitional period at this point in time and Albert's reign was just something they tried in the hope that it would work.
It didn't. Not too long after his reign, Albert was re-christened the 'hip-hop hippo' and put in a tag team with Scotty 2 Hotty.
Written by Lewis Howse
Features journalist for Cultaholic.com and script writer for the Cultaholic YouTube Channel.