In September 1979, the WWF would introduce the WWF Intercontinental Championship, a secondary championship for its midcard wrestlers. Patterson was crowned the company's first Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion after an alleged tournament held in Rio de Janeiro. While Patterson's tournament "victory" is widely listed in wrestling title and match histories, the tournament itself never actually took place. Patterson's apocryphal title victory would later become something of an inside joke during Patterson's on-screen tenure as one of Vince McMahon's "stooges". The fictional tournament was also later profiled in-depth on WWE.com as an April Fool's joke. On November 8, Patterson dropped the North American title to Seiji Sakaguchi.