Night of Champions is WWE's Pay Per View celebration of titleholders where every title belt is on the line. It debuted in 2007, when Vengeance became the first show to do just that. With WWE devoting a whole Pay Per View to its current title belts, I decided to put the spotlight on some now defunct championships and their best moments. In this article, we will look at the best of the WWE European Title. The European title was only active for roughly five years, from February 1997 until it was unified with the Intercontinental title in July 2002 taking in almost the entirety of the "Attitude Era." Unfortunately, from its perpetual place at the bottom of the card to Mideon "winning" the belt after finding it in Shane's suitcase, it won't go down in history as a very serious championship. Despite its rocky history, the division had its moments, beginning with its introduction in a tournament in 1997...
The First Reign
A past article this summer on WWE.com claims that it was always intended to be an important title, though it rarely came across as such. Even its inception seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to going on a European tour, and proclaiming their company as more than just a national company. Though "World Heavyweight Champion," or "Intercontinental," already implied that the whole world was involved. Nevertheless, a new title is an exciting moment in wrestling, and initially it was treated as such. 8 of the bigger mid card stars of the time featured in a one-week tournament in Germany to crown the first WWE European Champion. Despite the name, you didn't have to be European to win it. It was just born there. That would've meant that at the time British Bulldog would probably have been only man able to hold it and nobody wanted that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia_AeDNLb4Y Owen Hart and the British Bulldog were the two finalists, after coming through a tournament bracket that also featured Bret Hart, Triple H, Flash Funk, Vader, Mankind and Rocky Maivia. While the rest of the tournament wasn't televised, the final took place in February 1997, and was broadcast on an episode of Raw filmed in Berlin. Bulldog was the crowd favourite with his European status clearly being more important than his British-ness on the night. A Raw classic, this was a typically technical affair from the two that ended up going 22 minutes before the British Bulldog won with a roll-up. Bulldog was crowned the first ever European champion, winning the first new title that the WWE had introduced in twenty years. Despite holding the title for 206 days, the British Bulldog hardly defended it, as he was also a co holder of the Tag Titles with Owen and spent the majority of the time in tag team matches with him and the rest of the Hart Foundation. Perhaps that should have been the first indication that the title wasn't as prestigious as proclaimed. In the midst of Bulldog's title reign, he did have one high profile defense at Summerslam 1997 against Ken Shamrock. A feud based on the manliest of pass times, arm wrestling and eating dog food. Maybe taking his Bulldog moniker a bit too literally, Davey Boy vowed to eat a can of the stuff if Shamrock could beat him. Before the event, both men took part in an arm wrestling contest on Raw, which Bulldog interrupted with a head butt as he was about to lose. The match at Summerslam was a fine European Title match. Shamrock was angry and out for revenge, with Bulldog playing the cocky champion. He even at one point forced some of the dog food into Shamrock's face while fighting on the outside. This proved to the last straw, making Shamrock snap and go into his blind rage "zone." As would be his undoing many times in his career, going into the zone proved costly for Ken. Losing his temper, he smashed the dog food can into Bulldog's head and got himself disqualified. Bulldog picked up the win and avoided having to eat dog food. Though it probably wouldn't have been the worst thing he ever put in his body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZdkpF0ZpYs