Stats: 1x champion (54-day reign) The European Championship was used as a way to officially launch WWEs push of Kurt Angle in February 2000, when he defeated Val Venis on an episode of Smackdown to win his first piece of solo gold in the company. A few weeks later, Angle defeated Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental strap at the No Way Out pay-per-view, making the former Olympian one of WWE's few illustrious Eurocontinental Champions. Angle would drop the European title to Jericho at Wrestlemania 2000 without even getting pinned, as part of the events triple threat, two-falls match for both the Euro and Intercontinental championships (in the same match, Angle also lost the Intercontinental belt to Chris Benoit without getting pinned). The stint as champion marked Angles only reign with the Euro belt, but the title more than served its purpose since Kurt was rocketed up WWEs card shortly thereafter.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
