Mike Looks Back –The WWE European Title – Part Thirteen: Traversing The Rings of Saturn

Welcome once again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; Perry Saturn had claimed the European Title from former ally Eddy Guerrero at the Fully Loaded 2000 show with help from “Horny Little She-Devil” Terri Runnels. Perry had first received notoriety in the US wrestling scene as a result of his team with John Kronus. Known as The Eliminators, Saturn and Kronus had taken ECW by storm in the mid 1990s thanks to a mixture of high flying offence and wild brawling. The Eliminators were participants in the first ever pay per view bout for ECW, defeating The Dudley Boyz at the Barely Legal 1997 event to win the ECW Tag Titles. The win was a pretty decisive one and ECW supremo Paul Heyman had intentions of pushing The Elims as the best tag team in the world.

Despite being one half of the top team in the promotion, Saturn had reached a point where he no longer wanted to tag with Kronus any more and was interested in breaking up the team. ECW had put so much effort into building the team up though that the idea of splitting them up was a no-go. Frustrated with his creative direction, and interested in a pay rise, Saturn ended up taking an offer from WCW, leading to him taking on the role as the enforcer in Raven’s Flock. Perry enjoyed immediate success upon joining WCW, claiming the World Television Title and also getting to be one of the first people to really make Bill Goldberg break a sweat when they battled at the Spring Stampede 1998 pay per view.

Saturn would eventually turn babyface and feud with Raven, leading to arguably the highlight of his WCW run as he defeated Raven in a great match at the Fall Brawl 1998 pay per view event. WCW never really built on the momentum Saturn gained from that victory though and, over the course of the next 15 months, Saturn grew increasingly disenchanted with his status in the company. Saturn wasn’t alone in this though, as fellow mid-card talent Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Billy Kidman, Shane Douglas, Konnan, Disco Inferno and Rey Mysterio Jr banded together and tried to orchestrate an exodus from the company. Ultimately the WWF only made solid offers for four of the wrestlers, of which Perry was included, leading to Saturn, Guerrero, Benoit and Malenko all showing up in the WWF in February 2000 as The Radicalz.

Saturn was supposedly The Radical that WWF Chairman Vince McMahon saw the most potential in when the four were initially signed, and that makes sense seeing as Saturn was by far the biggest of the four and “big = good” was always McMahon’s philosophy. In fairness to Perry, he was in great shape and had a very striking look with his bald head and tattoos. Benoit and Guerrero would eventually find themselves going on to win World Titles in the WWF/E as the company entered the 2000s, whereas Saturn’s ascent up the ladder would stop at the European Title. Saturn was a solid performer in the ring, with an impressive collection of suplexes and submission holds in his offence, along with moves off the top rope that he could call on as well. Perry just never really made the sort of connection with the WWF audience that Benoit and Guerrero were able to do though, so he struggled to really get above the mid-card.

Benoit, despite lacking size and charisma, had near unmatched intensity in the ring and was able to play a believable Rabid Wolverine, so fans bought into him as a threat, especially when the likes of The Rock were so willing to sell for him. Guerrero, as we covered in last week’s chapter, was not only a smooth operator in the ring but he also had genuine charisma to go along with it. By comparison, Perry and Malenko were both pretty bland when matched up to their Radicalz brethren and neither of them had truly elite level wrestling abilities either. Adding Terri Runnels to Saturn’s act helped a little bit, but ultimately it felt more like they’d given Terri a beefy bodyguard rather than giving Saturn a manager.

The bout at Fully Loaded between Guerrero and the former Gargoyle wasn’t terrible, but it was hardly a classic either. The two were given just over 5 Minutes in which to have their battle, and the bout also had a notable mistake within it. One of the commentary tables had been set up to easily collapse so that it could be used in the Triple H Vs Chris Jericho contest later on in the night. According to Chris Jericho’s second book, a written notice had been put up backstage to request that wrestlers avoid landing on or fighting near the table because it was needed later on. Clearly Saturn missed this notice though, as he clotheslined Chyna over the table in question during the course of the bout, causing it to disintegrate immediately upon impact. With Chyna incapacitated, Terri Runnels made her presence known and helped Saturn pick up the win and the belt, starting off a pretty middling run with the belt for the master of Moss Covered Three Handled Family Credenza.

Saturn defended the European Title four times on television during his reign, with most of the matches coming in at under three minutes, which made them feel like throwaway contests that didn’t do much for Saturn or the belt itself. Saturn was given some time to work with former team mate Malenko on the 19th of August 2000 episode of Jakked though, although it was relegated to syndicated weekend airings. Considering where Saturn and Malenko had joined the WWF from, it was somewhat ironic that the bout mirrored the sort of action that could be found during the glory days of WCW Monday Nitro when it was the hottest show in Pro Wrestling. Sadly the finish was tainted by the interference of Essa Rios, who cost Malenko the contest, but the bout up to that point was well-wrestled and it could have easily been placed on an episode of Raw or SmackDown at the time.

Seeing as Saturn was now enjoying the managerial services of Terri Runnels, he was of course dragged into her ongoing feud with The Kat for the majority of his Title reign. This was what led to Saturn being matched up with the man that would ultimately dethrone him in the form of Al Snow. Kat (not to be confused with The Cat of WCW fame) had been scrapping with Terri in many forms since the spring of 2000, including a pretty miserable bout between the two back at WrestleMania 2000, that had seen Val Venis as referee and the elderly duo of Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young frequently getting involved. With Terri now having a big scary tattooed bloke in her corner, Kat needed some help of her own, and she found it in the form of Snow. Snow ended up being in Kat’s corner at SummerSlam when she battled Runnels in a thrilling Stink Face match, a bout which ended with Kat getting her arm raised when she rubbed her bum in Terri’s face and a big section of the viewing audience likely got rather jealous of the former Mrs. Goldust.

This all built to Snow getting a crack (pun not intended) at Saturn’s European belt on the 31st August 2000 edition of SmackDown. The bout between the two was a solid television outing that featured both wrestlers putting in the effort, with Snow even heading up to the top for a Moonsault at one stage. Snow eventually picked up a clean win by submission when he was able to fight his way out of Saturn’s Rings of Saturn hold and apply a Dragon Sleeper for the tap out victory. Saturn’s run with the belt might not have been must-see television, but he was able to go out on his shield in a decent competitive bout, which is better than some European Champions were able to say.

Saturn was someone who, on paper, looked like he would be a good choice to hold the European Title. He was a solid in-ring performer and could have a watchable bout with most of the roster. Had Terri been his mouthpiece and the focus of the reign been Saturn himself rather than Terri’s issue with The Kat, Saturn could have had potential in the role. However, Saturn’s reign ultimately felt like it was just taking up time for a month until the WWF could stick it on the next mid-carder they thought it would give a boost to. It didn’t help Saturn that he had to follow Eddy Guerrero, the most prolific European Champ in history up to that point and someone who had been given a chance to have some good matches both on television and pay per view during his run.

Perry’s run was arguably always going to be a disappointment when compared to the efforts of his predecessor, but the WWF could have committed more to him in the role and given him a bit more to do as Champion. They could have done more for Saturn when it came to his list of opponents too, rather than giving him a quick sub three minute win over Crash and a similarly short non-finish with Chris Jericho. The WWF had an impressive roster at the time and there was a host of talented people that could have wrestled with or feuded with Saturn for the belt. Instead Saturn spent the majority of his reign backing up his manager in her feud rather than focusing on a feud of his own. Saturn was certainly no disgrace to the belt, but he was one of the less memorable people to hold it. Saturn did give his successor a decent bout on the way out at least, with the clean submission victory giving Snow a solid base to build from. We’ll see how Snow got on next week, when Mike Looks Back.