Mike Looks Back – The WWE European Title – Part Seven: The First Euro-Continental Saga

Welcome all to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; D’Lo Brown had liberated the WWF European Title from the uninspiring clutches of Mideon at the Fully Loaded 1999 pay per view, giving Brown his third taste of Euro gold. However, Brown’s victory didn’t lead to him focusing on re-building the European belt’s fractured lineage. Rather, Brown used the momentum gained from his win to target yet more gold, namely the WWF Intercontinental Title, which was currently held by Jeff Jarrett at the time. Jarrett had spent the opening months of 1999 in a tag team with Owen Hart. Jeff and Owen’s team had been a successful one, with them winning the tag belts and holding them through WrestleMania XV until dropping them to the unlikely duo of X-Pac and Kane.

Following Owen’s tragic passing in May 1999, Jarrett refocused on the singles ranks and quickly dethroned The Godfather to collect the IC strap. With a new slightly harder edge, and with valet Debra wowing audiences with her increasingly skimpy collection of pay per view outfits, Jarrett became a solid upper mid-card presence in the WWF. It didn’t hurt Jarrett that he had the backing of head WWF writer Vince Russo, meaning that Jarrett was always going to be “figured in” in some form. What brought Jarrett into the European Title’s sphere was an event on Raw is War towards the end of July 1999. Ben Stiller, yes THAT Ben Stiller, was guest starring on the show in order to hype up his new movie, Mystery Men.

This led to Jarrett and Stiller having an in-ring confrontation after Stiller let slip that he was a big fan of Debra and her “puppies”. Ever the jealous bully, Jarrett attacked Stiller, which led to D’Lo Brown sprinting down to rescue the movie star. The payoff to this was Brown putting up his European Title against Jarrett’s IC Title on the 2nd of August 1999 episode of Raw. Despite the best efforts of Debra and her dog pound, Brown was able to overcome her wayward distractions and ended up blasting Jarrett with one of the belts in order to leave Raw as a double Champion. Thus Brown made history by becoming the first Euro-Continental Champion in WWF history by holding both belts at the same time.

This was of course great for Brown, but less beneficial for the European Title itself, as it was pushed very much to the background and used more as a bargaining tool for Brown to climb up the belt ladder. Rather than Brown being a proud European Champion who had managed to add yet another belt to his collection, it instead felt like Brown was primarily focused on being the IC Champ, with the European belt being an extra thing to go along with it. Indeed, outside of Title for Title bout on Raw and the subsequent rematch at SummerSlam 1999, Brown didn’t defend the European Title on its own on television once during his third reign. Brown wasn’t openly disrespecting the belt at least, but the belt very much felt like the “little brother” of the two he carried to the ring.

This point was punctuated by the fact that Brown deigned only to defend the IC Title on television once he became a double champ. Brown took on Val Venis on Sunday Night HeAT and battled Prince Albert on Shotgun Saturday Night, but on both occasions the European Title was little more than set dressing as only the “big brother” belt was up for grabs. It was a shame to see Brown, someone who had actually helped give the Euro Title some prestige back in 1998 when it desperately required some, now treating the belt as an afterthought in favour of the IC Title. Why the European Title couldn’t have also been on the line in these matches as well was never really explored, but the fact it wasn’t made the belt once again feel like it didn’t matter.

Brown and Jarrett eventually collided again at SummerSlam 1999, with both of Brown’s belts up for grabs. During the build-up to the pay per view event, Brown had been trying to help friend Mark Henry out by putting him through a rigorous training regimen. Brown showed Henry plenty of “tough love” in the process, but it always looked like Brown had Henry’s best interests at heart and was just being firm in order to help his buddy in a time of need. However, Henry ultimately got sick of Brown’s tactics and decided to turn on his harsh taskmaster by blasting Brown on the bonce with Jarrett’s signature acoustic guitar. Despite the usual screwy Attitude Era finish, Jarrett and Brown had a good match and Brown in particular received a strong reaction from the crowd in Minnesota, who gave him genuine star treatment.

With Jarrett now holding the distinction of being the second ever Euro-Continental Champion, he had the choice of defending both belts or giving one of them up. Jarrett chose the latter option, and it should surprise no one that the European belt was the one he decided to give up. Thus on the following night’s episode of Raw, Jarrett relinquished the belt and handed it over to Mark Henry as thanks for a job well done. Yes, Jarrett not only gave up the Euro belt after holding it for barely 24 hours, he also just handed it to another wrestler. Once again the European Title had gone from being a prize that folks fought hard in the ring to win to being just a trinket that one wrestler could pass to another like they were handing over a sausage casserole at a neighbourhood cook-out.

From a storyline perspective it did at least give Henry a solid reason for betraying Brown and scuppering their friendship. Not only did the lazy and feckless Henry no longer have to contend with Brown’s training regimen, but he’d also been handed his first singles belt in the WWF for good measure. However, despite the storyline reasoning for it all falling into place nicely, Henry was already a poor choice as champion, and the way he won the belt just made an already weak candidate feel even worse. That might come as a surprise to those who only remember Henry for his Hall of Pain days, where he was a competent monster Heel who could work at the top of the card. In 1999 however, Henry was genuinely one of the worst in-ring performers the WWF had at the time. Therefore, Henry being gifted a belt that he was thoroughly unqualified to hold, after the WWF had already done the same storyline just a few months earlier with Mideon, drove yet another truck through the poor Euro belt’s dwindling prestige.

Henry defended his newly acquired belt on television twice, against Steve Blackman and X-Pac on episodes of SmackDown. Neither match really set the world on fire, with the Blackman match barely lasting past the one minute mark and existing mainly so that it could continue Val Venis’ feud with “The Lethal Weapon”. Henry’s bout with X-Pac was received a little better, but the focus of the match was how Henry was out of shape and unable to keep up with his nippier opponent, leading to X-Pac getting the count out win. So not only did Henry not do much inside the ring of any note as champ, but he was also presented as an undeserving holder of the belt for good measure. As previously mentioned in our journey, having an undeserving champion can work as a storytelling device, but Henry was the third European Champion in 1999 alone to be presented that way and it was beyond overkill as a storytelling device by the time Henry got his turn at it.

Henry and Brown eventually met at the Unforgiven 1999 pay per view event and had a so-so battle for the belt that ended with Brown claiming his fourth European Title. Brown did at least look good in the bout en route to nabbing the belt, although Henry wrestled a pretty miserable contest from his end (which was very much the norm at the time for the hapless big lug). Henry’s reign had been built around him being a lazy womaniser who focused more on spending time with Godfather’s ladies of the evening rather than his wrestling, with Henry even taking a slap from Lillian Garcia at Unforgiven prior to his bout for one lecherous comment too many. Brown relieving the wrestling equivalent of a Snorlax of the European belt gave fans some optimism that the belt might finally be looking at some brighter days at least. Meanwhile, the inaugural holder primed himself for an improbable return to the limelight, but we’ll cover that next week when Mike Looks Back.