1x champion (125-day reign) In April 2001, brothers and tag team partners Jeff and Matt Hardy both won individual championships, with Jeff winning the Intercontinental title and Matt, a few weeks later, grabbing the Euro strap. And while the general assumption among fans was that Jeff was destined to be the solo breakout star of the Hardy Boyz tag team, he lost his Intercontinental title after only six days, while Matts 125-day stint as European Champion would end up being the second longest individual reign in company history, and the longest reign for an American born wrestler. Matt also won the title in epic fashion, getting an assist from his then-real life girlfriend Lita and pinning Eddie Guerrero on an April 26, 2001 episode of Smackdown. By the time he dropped the European Championship to The Hurricane on the August 27, 2001 edition of Raw, Hardy had turned heel and began his entertaining run as Matt Hardy V 1.0. Matt would later go on to have higher profile feuds against his brother and Edge, but his initial success as a solo wrestler can be traced back to his Euro title days.
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.
