Mike Looks Back – The WWE European Title – Part Eight: The Bulldog Bites Back

Welcome once again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; D’Lo Brown had managed to win the European Title for the fourth time after felling Mark Henry at WWF Unforgiven 1999. Whereas Brown’s first two reigns had seen Brown raise the prestige of both the belt and himself, his third reign had seen the belt be “little brothered” in deference to the Intercontinental Title as part of Brown’s Euro-Continental run. Brown’s win over Henry represented the second time that he had rescued the Euro belt from a champion who had been handed the gold rather than being charged to win it in the ring, as Henry had been gifted the belt by Jeff Jarrett, who had no need for it due to also being the Intercontinental Champ.

At least Brown was more prolific during his fourth reign than he was in his third, defending the belt on essentially a weekly basis for the month that he held it. Sadly the bouts were either on the short side (coming in at under 5 minutes) or mostly held on weekend show Sunday Night HeAT, which was a less prestigious stage to battle on than Raw or SmackDown. Brown wrestled to quick non-finishes with Steve Blackman and Big Show on Raw and SmackDown respectively, but he also got to defend the belt in slightly longer matches with Prince Albert and Chris Jericho on HeAT. Having short throwaway matches for the belt on the two major television shows didn’t really help with making the Euro gold seem important, but this was a symptom affecting most divisions during the Attitude Era.

Brown’s battle with Jericho from the 24th of October 1999 episode of HeAT was at least an entertaining scuffle, with the two wrestlers working at a quick clip and delivering a bout that was worthy of being on a television show of greater standing. Sadly the two were denied the chance to have a clean finish, as Jericho was feuding with Chyna at the time and the Amazonian Intercontinental Champ ended up heading down to the ring to cost her rival the contest. Despite having the chance to occasionally defend the belt in a solid HeAT collision now and then, Brown didn’t really have much in the way of interesting feuds for the belt during his fourth run. There was certainly nothing approaching Brown’s wars with X-Pac for the belt in the summer and autumn of 1998.

It should be noted that Brown’s fourth run as the Centurion of Europe fell during the period where Darren “Droz” Drozdov suffered his career ending injury, something that Brown spent a long time trying to bounce back from. During a bout on a SmackDown taping on the 5th of October 1999, an attempted Powerbomb from Brown went awry and it led to Drozdov landing wrong and being confined to a wheelchair as a result. Drozdov was reportedly supportive of Brown following the tragic events, but the situation hit Brown hard and his WWF run never really recovered. It could have been that Brown’s spirit was irretrievably crushed, the WWF lost some faith in him, or a combination of the two. The end result was that Brown went from being one of the WWF’s most promising prospects to being a lower mid-card talent by the time the year 2000 ended.

Whereas Brown was struggling mentally with the events of October 1999, Davey Boy Smith had been in the doldrums for considerably longer. Following the Montreal Screw-job in November 1997, Smith had decided to leave the WWF and had bought out his contract for the privilege. This led to Smith rocking up to WCW for the second time in his career after a brief stint there in 1993. Smith was a shadow of his former self during his second visit to Atlanta, with the negligible “highlights” being a poor feud with Steve “Mongo” McMichael and a middling team with Jim Neidhart. The aforementioned rivalry with Mongo did at least feature a humorous exchange where McMichael got enraged by Bulldog drinking a cup of coffee whilst the former American Footballer tried to accost him.

During a drab match at Fall Brawl 1998, Smith ended up landing badly on a trapdoor that WCW was using so that Ultimate Warrior could magically appear in the ring later on the show, and suffered a serious back injury in the process. In a July 2022 interview with WSI, Wright noted that he also landed on one of the trapdoors and they felt like concrete. Wright also noted that no one in WCW informed the wrestlers that the trapdoors were in place, which sounds like WCW being its usual disorganised self in all honesty. Sadly for Smith, not only was he injured in the bout but he then developed a serious spinal infection on top of it, which led to him spending months fighting for his very life in hospital. WCW, wonderful as always, decided to release him from his contract during this time. On top of all of this, Smith also had to deal with the death of his brother in law Owen and the nuclear bomb that event detonated in the Hart Family.

So 1997-99 was hardly a golden age for the former British Bulldog. However, one ray of light during this period for him was that the WWF was willing to bring him back into the fold once his physical status improved. Some did argue at the time that there was a tad bit of cynicism to the WWF’s kind offer. With the legal issues that surrounded Owen’s tragic death, having a member of the Hart Family on the books and “onside” wouldn’t be the worst tactic. The WWF even supposedly reached out to Jim Neidhart around this time, leading to him allegedly refusing to lose on the horrific Heroes of Wrestling pay per view as he felt he had a WWF gig waiting for him and didn’t want to risk that by losing on a show that roughly twelve people and a drowsy Alsatian were tuning in for.

Regardless of any real or perceived ulterior motives, the WWF was true to its word and Smith re-entered the federation in the autumn of 1999, where he was quickly thrust into the Main Event scene and did battle with the likes of Triple H and The Rock. Sadly for Smith, he didn’t have the required heat to keep his stay at the top of the table going, with Rock putting a full stop on any designs The Bulldog had of being a Main Event player with a pretty straightforward clean win at the No Mercy pay per view event in October 1999. Smith’s feud with Rock had mostly seen Bulldog either get beaten up or roasted on the mic, with Rock even giving Davey a Rock Bottom onto a tray of dog excrement at one stage.

It didn’t help that Bulldog’s body was basically hanging on by a thread by this stage and he was still battling a few notable personal demons. Bulldog’s presentation was notably less dynamic as well. Gone were his colourful Union Jack themed attire and stirring Rule Britannia music, replaced with a basic jeans and black boots look and an utter dirge of an entrance music that sounded like a fax machine was vomiting up typewriters. Despite a somewhat decent attempt by the WWF to try and squeeze a top of the card run out of him, Smith soon sank into the middle of the pack and got lost in the shuffle, and as if by clockwork the WWF decided now was as good a time as any to put Bulldog back into the European Title hunt.

Assisted by new lackeys The Mean Street Posse, Bulldog bounced back from his pay per view loss at No Mercy to dethrone Brown for the belt on an episode of Smackdown at the end of October 1999, becoming a two time European Champion in the process. There’s no doubt that Brown’s fourth run with the belt was lacking the spark of his first two reigns, so trying to use a Title switch to give another wrestler a bit of a boost wasn’t the worst idea. However, even though Brown’s reign had been unremarkable and he was suffering in the doldrums both inside the ring and out of it, Brown was still an athlete in near enough top shape who could have at least a watchable outing with the majority of the roster.

Bulldog, by comparison, was past his physical prime and was carrying a combination of injuries and personal issues. Smith certainly was trying when he entered the ring, so laziness isn’t a charge that could be laid at his feet. However, Smith was far past the point where he should have been wrestling a regular schedule by this point, so giving him a belt just put more pressure on him to deliver and it didn’t really help the prestige of the belt itself either. Smith had essentially failed at the top of the card after coming back to the Federation with a reasonable push, so him dropping down and quickly snagging the Euro belt didn’t help with making the championship look like a valuable crown that was difficult to attain.

In some ways, giving the belt back to Smith felt like the WWF admitting that they didn’t have any other ideas for him, so they fell back on a tried and trusted formula. However, Bulldog’s first reign had been about giving a brand-new championship instant credibility by placing it around the waist of the promotion’s biggest European star. By contrast, his second reign felt more like a consolation prize for a wrestler on his way back down the card. Brown wasn’t done in his pursuit of the belt despite losing it to the Bulldog and he would launch a campaign for an unprecedented fifth run, but there were other challengers waiting in the wings who wanted to yank the belt outside of The Bulldog’s less-than-sturdy jaws. However, we’ll cover that next week when Mike Looks Back.