Stats: 2x champion (134-day combined reign) Eddie Guerreros initial 111-day reign as European Champion went a long way in establishing his character and making him a top performer in the WWE during the early/mid-2000s. After coming in with much fanfare as one of four WCW defects dubbed The Radicals, he won his first championship from Chris Jericho on an April 3, 2000 episode of Raw, with the help of Chyna. The budding romance between the two sparked the beginning of the Latino Heat gimmick for the character, which featured such standout moments as Guerrero defending the strap against Essa Rios wearing a bowtie and tuxedo pants at the 2000 Backlash pay-per-view event. And after the title had been devalued to some extent by a succession of short reigns, Guerrero established the European Championship as a valuable commodity in the WWE. He eventually dropped the title to former Radical-mate Perry Saturn at the 2000 Fully Loaded PPV. But by that point, Guerrero was already a fixture in WWEs upper mid-card. Guerrero earned a second run with the European title when he defeated Test at the epic WrestleMania X-Seven. But this reign was significantly shorter (23 days). By that point, Eddie was just a placeholder and his reign was really only worthwhile for how it elevated Matt Hardy as a singles star (see No. 6 on the list).
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.
