IYO SKY as WWE Women’s Intercontinental Champion: Should the Genius of the Sky take the title from Raquel Rodriguez?

WWE

2026 has been a terrible year creatively for IYO SKY, dating back to the very start of the year, where her sole role in the WrestleMania build up was to put extra heat on both Women’s Championship rivalries, before being left off the show altogether.

Despite winning Queen of the Ring, the entire tournament was structured to effectively be an eliminator match, with her and Liv Morgan picking up wins over each other that ultimately accomplished nothing and benefitted neither.

After more months of doing nothing, IYO got her first glimpse of direction last week on Raw in the form of yet another match with the Judgment Day and Raquel Rodriguez.

With IYO seemingly now having her sights set on the Women’s Intercontinental Championship, there are reasons both for and against her winning the gold.

The ideal scenario

I think when most people envision what IYO’s Intercontinental Title reign could look like, it bares a striking resemblance to the United States Title reigns of Sami Zayn and Ilja Dragunov last year.

A lot can be said about how the Open Challenge has become an overdone crutch in WWE recently, but that conversation isn’t as important as actually getting an excuse to see great wrestling on the show every week.

IYO is almost inarguably the best wrestler in WWE, let alone it’s women’s division, so giving her the spotlight to have weekly defences would help the quality of the show, help elevate the rest of the roster, and most importantly the title itself, which really hasn’t seen much of a major focus since Lyra Valkyria and Becky Lynch’s rivalry wrapped up last year.

IYO defending the title against names like Lyra, Bayley, Lola Vice, Roxanne Perez and even names from NXT and AAA such as Kelani Jordan, Kendal Grey and La Catalina before eventually putting over a rising star at the beginning of 2027 would be a very good and productive title run.

The reality

The problem, however, is that the ideal scenario entirely falls apart when the reality of WWE’s booking is staring you in the face.

Raquel Rodriguez, through absolutely no fault of her own, has had an awful run with the belt, because WWE does not value the title and the entire women’s midcard enough.

Flipping the belt over to IYO will not make much of a difference, because as we have seen in the months since SummerSlam, WWE is more than happy to have her sit backstage and do nothing for an extended period of time (see also her run as Women’s World Champion last year, which was also 90% backstage segments).

In theory, IYO’s IC title run would be exactly what is needed to revive the division, but changing the champion does nothing to fix what the actual root of the problem is with the women’s division. The talent is there and has always been there, it’s the lack of care and effort that is holding them back.

If IYO was to take the title, not much would change, and it would only lead to fans growing more and more frustrated as to why the best wrestler in the division is also sitting back doing nothing.

WWE is more than welcome to prove me wrong, as nobody would welcome the former more than I would, but it’s really hard to get optimistic about anything this company is booking right now.

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• wwe
• Iyo Sky
• women's intercontinental championship

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