History
The WWE European Championship was originally known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) European Championship. The WWF European Championship, as it was then known, emerged in 1997 when The British Bulldog became the first Champion after winning a tournament that was held over several shows in Germany, culminating in a finals victory over Owen Hart. With Shawn Michaels winning the belt, it made him the first Grand Slam Champion in WWE. Michaels is the only wrestler to have held both the WWF Championship and the European title at the same time.
After winning the European title, both D'Lo Brown and Al Snow were billed from different parts of Europe each week while champion. During Snow's reign, he and "Head" dressed up as various ethnic stereotypes corresponding to the European location they were billed from, though not always in a politically or geographically correct manner. The belt was retired briefly in April 1999 by then-champion Shane McMahon, who wanted to retire as an "undefeated champion". McMahon reintroduced the championship two months later and gave it to Mideon, who saw the title belt in Shane's travel bag and asked if he could have it.
The British Bulldog was the inaugural champion and has had the longest title reign with 206 days. William Regal and D'Lo Brown both have had the most title reigns, each holding it four times.
The shortest reigns as European Champion were those of Jeff Jarrett and Chris Jericho, who each held the championship for roughly one day. Jeff Jarrett defeated D'Lo Brown for the European Championship (along with the Intercontinental Championship) at Summerslam 1999 (in the opening match, around 8 PM EST) and gave it to Mark Henry the following night on RAW (around 10 PM EST). Chris Jericho defeated Kurt Angle in a triple threat match at Wrestlemania 2000 (by pinning Chris Benoit at around 10 PM EST) and lost the title to Eddie Guerrero on RAW the night after (around 9 PM EST). Jeff Hardy was the youngest champion, at 24.
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