Mike Looks Back – The WWE European Title – Part Eleven: The Second Euro-Continental Saga

Welcome once again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; Kurt Angle had claimed WWF gold within 3 months of his initial WWF main roster debut when he felled Val Venis on an episode of SmackDown. Angle made sense as someone to hold the European belt. He was an up and coming fresh talent who could get a boost from claiming the ailing championship, whilst the belt benefitted from being associated with a star that was demonstrably on the rise. However, Angle’s reign suffered in the same way that D’Lo Brown’s third run with the belt had done, in that the European Title quickly had to share space around the Pittsburgher’s waist when Angle also began a quest to hold the WWF Intercontinental Title.

Angle captured the European belt on the 10th of February 2000 episode of SmackDown, and just 17 days later he was relieving Chris Jericho of his Intercontinental belt. This made Angle the third ever Euro-Continental Champion in WWF/E history, which was a big achievement that showed the WWF clearly had faith in the former Olympian. However, with Angle now having two belts to carry around with him, it limited how often he would defend his European gold. During his near two months as European kingpin, Angle defended the belt on television just twice. The first of these contests saw Angle fall to Rikishi in just 91 seconds by count out on the 28th of February 2000 episode of Monday Night Raw. Hardly an auspicious inaugural defence for the new Champion of Europe I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Angle’s other televised defence of the belt did at least lead to him picking up a victory, as he put the belt on the line against Tazz and Chris Jericho on the 13th of March 2000 episode of Raw is War. Around this time, Angle had formed an unusual alliance with the totally batty Bob Backlund, leading to the mentally unstable former WWF Champion helping Angle in his matches. After Bizarre Bob had run in during consecutive IC Title defences that Angle had against The Human Suplex Machine and Y2J, this Triple Threat bout was set up for the European Title. At just a scant three minutes, the three bone-benders weren’t really given much chance to really tell a story in the contest, with it instead mostly being a brief procession of moves as all three contestants battled it out.

Miserly though the time allocation was, the three wrestlers were at least able to produce something entertaining, with the biggest cheer of the match dedicated to Tazz locking Bat$hit Bob in the Tazzmission when Angle’s crazy ally tried to help him. Angle was eventually able to clatter Jericho with a Title belt and that was enough for the tainted three count. And that was all she wrote as far as televised title bouts for Angle’s Euro run. It was in many ways a shame to see the belt defended so rarely during Angle’s stint as Champ. One positive distinction between Angle and Brown as Euro-Continental Champions is that Angle did manage a mostly even split between Euro and IC Title defences during his time with both belts.

Once Brown won the IC Title the European belt basically became a very shiny accessory that seemed to just be taking up space. Angle did at least deign to defend the “Little Brother” belt at times, netting two televised European defences to the three he had for the Intercontinental belt. One thing that the WWF seemingly never did when someone had the Euro-Continental status was defend the belts regularly together as one entity. In both cases, the only time the two belts were both put up together was on the occasion that the Champion lost them. Had Angle regularly defended both championships together, it would have helped present them as prizes of equal value. That being said, Angle was a villain who leaned far more towards cowardice on the bravery scale during his early WWF days, so it would make sense from a storyline perspective that he’d rather focus on just defending one belt at a time.

Angle’s alliance with Bob Backlund did make sense in that they both had amateur wrestling backgrounds and were both a bit loopy. Backlund’s character was considerably nuttier than Angle, who was more presented as a bit of a tactless goof as opposed to a ranting and raving lunatic like Bobby Backers was, but their shared instability made them a reasonable combo. Ultimately though Angle didn’t really need a manager at the time, as his microphone skills were already quite polished and he played the arrogant doofus role very well. Angle’s time as European Champion was only a small part of his overall legacy, and he didn’t really get to do much with the belt as it had to share screen time with the IC Title. It was ultimately a brief part of Angle’s overall legacy, though one that allowed him to eventually become a Grand Slam Champion.

Angle did a much better job as Euro-Continental Champion of trying to make the two belts feel like they were at least on some kind of even keel, which is more than D’Lo Brown and Jeff Jarrett did. Brown essentially never defended the European belt and Jarrett outright gave it away. Angle at least defended it a couple of times and acted like the belt meant something to him. Just like the previous two Euro-Continental Champs though, Angle’s run with holding both belts ultimately wasn’t going to last that long, with doomsday for the American Hero scheduled for 2nd of April 2000 at WrestleMania. Angle would face-off with the man he took the IC Title from, Chris Jericho, and WWF newcomer Chris Benoit.

Benoit, along with Eddy Guerrero, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko, had jumped over from WCW in January 2000, and had quickly got into a spat with fellow hard-hitting Canadian Chris Jericho. Benoit and Jericho seemed like a natural pairing, and they would go on to have many famous battles with one another during their WWF/E stint. Angle worked as a natural foil for both Canadian grapplers. Angle could hang with Benoit on the mat and his arrogant verbose character opposed Benoit’s more violent and straightforward act perfectly. Meanwhile, Jericho was more than a match for Angle on the microphone and his cool sharp-witted character bounced well off Angle’s square cocky one. Putting the three of them together for a big match at WrestleMania should have been a guaranteed classic.

However, though the match between the three at Mania 2000 featured some good wrestling in spurts, the bout also felt a bit disjointed and was hurt by a mostly unresponsive crowd. This was an issue the WWF had faced before when visiting Anaheim for a major pay per view event, with fans infamously streaming out of the building during the Iron Man Match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XII. With both of Angle’s belts up for grabs (a result of Batty Backlund’s contractual meddling, leading to Angle terminating their relationship) the Olympic Gold Medallist ended up leaving Anaheim empty handed, as Chris Benoit took the IC Title and Chris Jericho took the Euro belt back to Winnipeg with him.

I would stop short of calling Angle’s reign atop the Euro division a disappointment, but I do feel like it could have been better overall. If Angle had been able to focus on just the European crown, without also having to balance the Intercontinental belt at the same time, then the reign could have been a much stronger one. Naturally when you have a champion divide their interests between multiple prizes then one or more of the belts in question will lose some focus and prestige. Angle as the European Champ battling the likes of a Tazz in a proper feud could have potentially led to some interesting angles and matches that could have raised interest in the belt itself. Instead though, Angle’s European reign ended up sharing the spotlight with the IC Title, and the belt was somewhat minimised as a result. For now, Chris Jericho was top of the European Mountain, but we’ll cover that next week when Mike Looks Back.