Wrestling101.com interview

DiBiase discusses his 1979 run in WWE:

I wasn’t even there for a year, but I went there and I was brought in the North American Heavyweight Champion. They had their World Champion, their World Tag Team Champions and their Womens World Champion, that was it, there weren’t any other belts. I let Vince McMahon Sr. know that one of the belts that Bill Watts had in Mid-South was the North American Championship, then when I lost the belt to Pat Patterson, Vince then made up a story about the Intercontinental title. There is a little bit of history there, people say Pat Patterson was the first Intercontinental champion, truth is I was.