Mike Looks Back – The WWE European Title – Part Twelve: Scorched By Latino Heat

Welcome once again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; Kurt Angle had lost both his European and Intercontinental belts at WrestleMania 2000, with Chris Jericho claiming the former after pinning Chris Benoit. Poor Kurt had lost both of his belts and hadn’t even been pinned or made to submit in the match itself, just adding to the Olympic Hero’s frustration. Jericho had debuted in the WWF during the summer of 1999 and, by WrestleMania 2000, had already captured both the Intercontinental and European Titles whilst successfully transitioning from Heel to Face. Jericho had an explosive debut in the WWF, interrupting The Rock on an episode of Raw is War and showing off his promo skills. However, following that impressive beginning, Jericho had to then deal with some adversity as well.

Jericho admitted himself in the second volume of his autobiography that he wasn’t especially popular with some of his new peers upon joining the WWF, notably the DX crew led by Triple H. Despite this, Jericho did manage to win the Intercontinental Title and have some watchable matches with Chyna along the way. Jericho noted in his book that his time with the IC Title led to him battling Bob “Hardcore” Holly a few times, which ended up being beneficial to Jericho’s standing in the company. Like Holly, Jericho was a snug worker who liked to “lay it in” and work hard, so Holly enjoyed the matches and passed on favourable reviews of Jericho to the rest of the locker room, which helped with Jericho finally gaining a foothold both amongst his peers and WWF management.

Following the storyline and feud with Chyna, Chyna became allied with Jericho and started accompanying him to ringside and helping out in his matches. The Jericho and Chyna alliance never really felt like it worked that well, and Jericho himself didn’t really enjoy it either, so post-WrestleMania the WWF found a way to split the duo up. Jericho would defend his newly won belt against recent WWF arrival Eddy Guerrero on Raw is War the day after Jericho’s Mania 2000 triumph. Eddy had just begun playing a sleazy womanising character, with Chyna being the object of his affection. Chyna had defeated Eddy in a six-person tag match at Mania, and crushed his almonds in the process in classic Chyna style, seemingly ending his amorous advances forever. However, that would prove to be incorrect on Raw, as Chyna finally succumbed to Eddy’s “Latino Heat” and helped Eddy defeat Jericho for the Euro belt.

This storyline twist not only achieved the goal of splitting Jericho and Chyna up, but it also paired Eddy and Chyna together, leading to the two becoming a highly entertaining couple. Eddy had been a superb villain during his days in WCW, most notably during his feuds with the likes of Rey Mysterio Jr, Chavo Guerrero Jr and Billy Kidman in 1997-98, wherein Eddy had won multiple WCW World Cruiserweight Titles. Eddy had initially faced some adversity on his own upon his WWF debut in early 2000, as a miscue whilst delivering his signature Frog Splash had led to Eddy shattering his arm and immediately requiring some time on the injured list. Eddy had rushed back to the ring and used his association with Chyna as a way to kickstart his WWF run.

The best way to describe the relationship between Eddy and Chyna to a modern WWE fan would be the relationship enjoyed between “Dirty” Dom Mysterio and Rhea Ripley in recent years, with the devious cheating Latin man managing to successfully romance the imposing powerhouse woman. Eddy and Chyna’s relationship tended to be a lot more comedic though, mirroring the relationship between Gomez and Morticia Addams a bit more than the slightly more serious way that Dom and Rhea often interacted. Eddy and the WWF actually received criticism at the time for Eddy playing such a stereotypical character, with the exaggerated accent and mannerisms to go along with it. However, controversial though the character may have been to some, Eddy played it to the hilt and Chyna was a perfect comic foil for him, leading to numerous funny segments between the two. One of the finest was Eddy desperately trying to cheer Chyna up after he had to eliminate her from the King of the Ring tournament, with each gift falling on deaf ears until he managed to present a cute puppy to his “Mamacita”, at which point Chyna’s heart melted in hilarious fashion.

Eddy’s character as European Champion certainly connected with the fans, and in-ring he was one of the most prolific champions ever. Whereas Kurt Angle defended the title just twice during his near two month reign, and Chris Jericho never successfully defended it all, Eddy Guerrero had 15 televised defences of the European Title during his near four month run with the belt. Some of the bouts were genuinely very good as well, such as Eddy’s contest with Essa Rios at the Backlash 2000 pay per view. Eddy and Essa’s bout is fondly remembered not just for the in-ring action itself, but for Eddy wrestling the bout in suit pants and a bow-tie because he had just returned from his Prom after getting his GED and had to head right down to the ring to wrestle.

Eddy also became the first European Champion to actually defend the belt in Europe itself since Shane McMahon when he successfully saw off a challenge from Chris Jericho at the Insurrextion event in London back in May 2000. Thanks to having the added spice of Chyna helping out in his corner, Eddy managed to win quite a few of these bouts by pin-fall too, a notable improvement on other European Champions up to that point, who had often had to rely on Disqualifications and Count Outs in order to keep their grip on the belt. Eddy not only scored wins over the likes of Jericho and Rios, but he was also able to overcome the likes of Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, D’Lo Brown and even Kurt Angle in televised/pay per view outings.

One of Eddy’s more notable victories came at the Judgment Day 2000 pay per view, where Eddy defeated former friends Saturn and Malenko thanks to using a lead pipe hidden in a bouquet of roses. Wrestling historians will no doubt remember Pat O’Connor utilising a similar technique in his 1963 contest with Headlocker Harry Head-Locke in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Indeed, of the four American pay per view events that took place during Eddy’s reign, he defended the belt on all but one of them, and that was because Eddy was competing in the King of the Ring tournament and thus wasn’t able to put the belt up for grabs at that event. Considering how rarely the European belt had been defended on pay per view events during 1997-1999, seeing Eddy put it on the line so many times during his run helped with making the belt once again feel like an important prize that was worth winning.

Eddy was largely competing with talented wrestlers in the middle of the card as well so, outside of the odd duffer with the likes of Big Boss Man on SmackDown or the struggling Davey Boy Smith on an episode of Sunday Night HeAT, the match quality was generally good or at least watchable. Having Chyna associated with his act helped Eddy gain credibility in the eyes of the fans too, as she was an established star when they were paired up and it gave Eddy’s standing an immediate boost to have Chyna as his on-screen love interest. In many ways it was fair to say that Eddy Guerrero’s first run with the European Title is one of the very best in the belt’s history. The matches were generally good, Eddy had an over character that the fans were into, he worked on the main televised shows as well as pay per view events, and under his watch the European Title started to feel like a prize that was genuinely worth having again. Both Eddy himself and the belt benefited from their association with each other.

Eddy was also able to use the European Title as a launching pad for his WWF career in general, leading to him snagging the Intercontinental belt later in the year once his stint in the European division was over for a while. Eddy’s early Latino Heat run and the European belt are ultimately linked to one another, and it stands as a good example of what a belt can do for a wrestler when it’s presented as something worthwhile and not just a “prop” that’s there to take up space. Eventually the WWF started putting plans in motion for Eddy and Chyna’s relationship to fracture, and by the autumn of 2000 they would be broken up. Looking back it feels like the duo genuinely had more life to it and they pulled the trigger on the breakup a little early. Eddy and Chyna were initially a Heel act when they were put together, but both were so entertaining in their respective roles that they were essentially turned babyface by the time the summer was in full swing.

With both Eddy and Chyna set to move into a feud with Intercontinental Champ Val Venis in time for SummerSlam, it was decided to bring Eddy’s run as European kingpin to an end, with Perry Saturn being selected as the man to do it at the Fully Loaded pay per view event in July. Knowing that a good couples feud usually draws interest, the WWF decided to pair Saturn up with horny villainous miscreant Terri Runnels, with Runnels eventually playing a big part in Saturn getting a questionable win over Eddy to capture the belt. Rather than stick with the feud between the two couples a bit longer though, the WWF decided to move Saturn’s reign in a different direction, but we’ll cover that next week when Mike Looks Back.