After Fastlane, Bryan set his sights on the Intercontinental Championship for WrestleMania 31, where he was one of multiple wrestlers who came to possess champion Bad News Barrett's title belt while defeating Barrett in non-title matches. On the March 12 episode of "SmackDown", Bryan declared his entry into the multi-man ladder match for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania 31. After Bryan was pinned twice within a week by fellow ladder match entrant Dolph Ziggler, the "Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter" reported that "WWE has made it clear where Bryan stands after starting to lose regularly now".