Nowadays in the WWE, championships are a dime a dozen. Each of them have become less meaningful as they’re merged, eliminated, and brought back depending on the marketing gimmick the WWE is running. There was a time when championships meant something, and it was big news when on this day in wrestling history, February 26, 1997, Davey Boy Smith beat his brother-in-law Owen Hart to become the inaugural European Champion.
Starting right, ending wrong
Looking to branch out to the European market more, Vince McMahon and WWE creative came up with the European Championship and really sold it as the first title added since the Intercontinental Championship.
It began with a week long tournament through Germany before the final match took place between Davey Boy Smith and Owen Hart in Berlin, Germany on a pretaped Raw that aired on March 3.
While the matches were great, the championship itself never held the luster of the previous titles, especially since the Intercontinental Championship was basically the same thing. The interesting thing is, fans like myself actually liked it and thought it was pretty cool the WWE was branching out and openly including other continents. Plus, the fact Davey Boy Smith was a fan favorite really helped. And given he was from England, Davey Boy Smith was the perfect choice to open the title’s existing and held it for a record 206 days.
Though he didn’t hold the title for as long as Davey Boy Smith, D’Lo Brown was among a handful that held it four times, and he is arguably as good a champion and as important for the title’s history and for helping to make it succeed. Brown proved himself as a solid upper mid-card wrestler and had some of the best matches in the title’s history.
Despite theirs and others’ efforts, the championship was put on hiatus in 1999 when then champions Shane McMahon “retired” as an undefeated champion. Following this hiatus, the championship eventually made its way back to the ring, but was permanently retired in 2002 when it was merged with the Intercontinental Championship.
There’s always a backstory
As I mentioned in the beginning, this was created to expand into the European market, which was kinda pointed out by longtime WWE personality and current Executive Producer of Smackdwon, Bruce Prichard.
(Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the quote)
“We were looking to do more international touring and Vince (McMahon) wanted to have a championship that was unique to Europe and he felt that the logical person at that time was Davey Boy to be the first European Champion.
“The dissension between Bulldog and Owen and the fact that they were Tag Team Champions & brother-in-laws. Just thinking that this would be a good story. Excellent match with the two guys.” – Bruce Prichard, Something To Wrestle (Davey Boy Smith episode).
It was sad to see this championship fade away, but it was a fun time. History meant something then, and adding championships were a serious matter, or was at least presented that way and accepted as such by the fan base. If nothing else, this day in history may help us to appreciate when there were limited championships that weren’t designed solely to bring in cash for replicas.
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