10 Most Disrespected Titles In WWE History
1. European Championship
WWE’s tertiary men’s belt could hardly have started life better. British Bulldog vs Owen Hart in a tournament final, fought in Berlin. Sure, “European Championship” is a bit of an arbitrary name, but that? That works.
It was all downhill from there pretty sharpish. First, Shawn Michaels politicked his way into taking the belt from the Bulldog in front of a UK crowd. Then, not a year into its existence, he laid down for Triple H, allowing his DX stablemate to pin him for the belt, which was now objectively worthless.
The list of European title holders is genuine hall of fame stuff, which makes the belt’s treatment even more bizarre. Its nadir came in 1999, when a grass-green Shane McMahon decided he’d like a go with the belt. He won it off X-Pac, then decided he didn’t care about the trinket, leaving it in a gym bag for Mideon to find three months later.
In terms of match quality, the European Championship is way above a lot of other belts on this list, and that’s why the title’s treatment is so odd. They didn’t denigrate it because of a lack of ideas or personnel; they didn’t even lose interest in a hurry. They treated it like a joke just because.