Mike Looks Back – The WWE European Title – Part Three: The Helmsley Era

Welcome again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; Shawn Michaels was the reigning WWF European Champion and was treating the belt as little more than an inconvenience. Indeed, the belt had become little more than a joke, with Shawn mockingly referring to it as “the prestigious European Championship” and acting like he couldn’t possibly care less about it. When Shawn added the WWF Title to his collection at Survivor Series 1997 (in a match you might have heard about) it became even sillier for Shawn to still be carrying around the European Title at that stage, so the WWF finally decided that it was time to take it off him. Shawn was still very much in the “will not lose” phase of his career though, so rather than having Shawn drop it to someone in a proper match and give them a rub, they instead just did a comedy match on Raw where Triple H “defeated” Michaels for the belt.

They had actually teased some dissension between Michaels and HHH when the bout was booked by Commissioner Slaughter, but it was of course all a SWERVE (one guess who was writing the show at the time, bro) and in the end the two goofed around in the ring and HHH eventually got a three count in order to crown him as Champion. Despite the ludicrous way the belt changed hands; on paper Triple H seemed like a good pick if you wanted someone to help rebuild the European Title’s tattered image. Triple H wasn’t yet the Main Event Superstar he would go on to become, but he was a solid act in the upper mid-card and an associate of top Heel Shawn Michaels both on and off-screen. Tri was also a solid wrestler within the ropes, and was starting to find a character that worked for him as his existing “generic Heel with the muscular manager who is more over than he is” role was slowly morphing into one of an arrogant degenerate who always talked about how big his…appendage was.

Triple H defending the European Title in good matches with actual finishes would have likely helped increase the belt’s prestige pretty quickly. So of course he pretty much got immediately injured upon winning the belt and they had to find a way to get the belt off of him. Rather than just stripping HHH of the belt and doing a tournament of some kind, the WWF instead decided to get creative. Goldust, who was doing a gimmick at the time where he’d dress up as other wrestlers or celebrities (including his father Dusty Rhodes and Marilyn Manson at different points), was recruited by Triple H to wrestle the challenger in his stead. The Bizarre One dressed up as Tri, complete with ludicrous fake nose, and battled Owen Hart on an episode of Raw, with The King of Harts then defeating the Triple H attired Goldust to seemingly win the belt. They did at least present this as Triple H being an overconfident Heel who tripped himself up, as HHH did not treat the bout as a serious match where the belt was up for grabs. However, Commissioner Slaughter decided to get one over on the villains by saying that he was so convinced by Goldust’s impression that he’d let the belt actually change hands, thus making Own the official new champ. Though this was a clever way for a babyface authority figure to stick it to degenerate Heels and their antics, it was yet another controversial Title change in the young belt’s history, and that didn’t help its standing in the wider WWF ecosystem.

In Owen Hart the WWF did at least have a Champion with some credibility, with him previously holding the Intercontinental and Tag Team Titles, as well as having a King of the Ring victory to his name. Owen was an over character who could have good matches, and he was certainly one of the more prolific European Champions up to that point in the belt’s history, with Owen defending the belt five times on television during the two months he had it. Sadly Owen was never actually allowed to retain the belt by pin or submission in a televised bout, with all his matches for the belt either ending in DQ or Count Out. It was good to see the belt being defended on-screen regularly like it was a real Title, but the sheen was rubbed away somewhat when every match was overly quick and ended in some kind of a terrible non-finish. Even when up against guys lower down the pecking order than he was at the time, such as Billy Gunn (a tag wrestler during this period), Barry Windham (a member of the ill-fated NWA faction) or Mark Henry (the junior member of The Nation faction) Owen couldn’t buy a proper win. And in the latter two cases, Owen didn’t even get to win at all. Yes, Owen Hart did a Count Out job to a largely irrelevant Barry Windham in March 1998, no wonder he didn’t get over a babyface with booking like that.

Not only was Owen’s run as European Champion underwhelming; but the way he lost it was yet another case of the belt switching hands in a controversial manner. Owen was goaded into defending the belt against Triple H on the 17th March 1998 episode of Raw is War, even though Owen’s leg was in a cast at the time, and Owen ended up losing the belt in under a minute when the referee stopped the bout. I should stress here that I’m not saying that you can’t get creative with how a belt changes hands sometimes. However, I would argue that, when the belt in question is barely a year old and 75% of the title changes up to that point have all come in some kind of screwy fashion, then you’ve probably overdone it with the creative finishes and should just have a normal match where someone hits someone else with their move and pins them to win the belt. After a certain point, you’re just telling people that the belt in question isn’t actually important and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

With the Title now being on a healthy Triple H, the WWF did at least consider the belt important enough to feature on the WrestleMania XIV card, with Tri defending his newly won gold against Owen Hart in a rematch. To spice things up, the WWF added the stipulation of Chyna being handcuffed to Commissioner Slaughter at ringside, with the commish seemingly there to stop her interfering. This was actually the first time that the European Title had been defended on a pay per view being broadcast in the USA since SummerSlam 1997, showing how little of a factor the Title had been in its first year of existence, even when it had been held by pushed commodities at the time such as Davey Boy Smith and Shawn Michaels. Triple H and Owen Hart had a solid match for the belt, with Chyna eventually managing to overcome the stipulation and play her part in a Triple H win, as we actually got a pin-fall in a proper European Title match for the first time since the belt was introduced into the company.

Triple H scored yet another win over Owen Hart at the Unforgiven pay per view in April, as Owen’s ill-fated babyface run was finally curtailed with a much needed Heel turn soon after. Owen Hart had a lot of potential as a babyface following the Montreal Screwjob, but his booking had been so weak that he never really had a chance to get over and he was mostly used as someone who could do some jobs to establish Triple H in his new degenerate role. Owen did get a small measure of revenge by pinning Triple H in a 6 Man Tag Team bout at the Over The Edge 1998 pay per view, getting to give HHH a Pedigree onto the European belt itself, but that was it for Owen and the European Title picture, as he moved onto a feud with Ken Shamrock whilst Triple H traded up for a feud with The Rock over the Intercontinental Title.

Despite defending the belt on consecutive pay per view events, Triple H would only defend the European Title one more time, and that match wouldn’t come until July. So yes, Tri went nearly THREE MONTHS without defending his belt (No wonder he had no issue with Liv Morgan doing similar in recent years). He didn’t even have a couple of quickie defences on Raw or something, he just didn’t bother defending it and no one seemed to really care, highlighting just how unimportant the belt had become. Triple H’s July defence would prove to be his last one however, and whereas HHH hadn’t seemed to care too much about holding the belt, the next Champion proved to care very much and it gave the belt a nice shot in the arm, which we will cover next week when Mike Looks Back.