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|lightest = Spike Dudley |pastnames = WWF European Championship |titleretired = July 22, 2002 |pastlookimages = }} The WWE European Championship was a professional wrestling championship competed for in World Wrestling Entertainment. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, multiple wrestlers held the European and WWE Intercontinental Championships within short spans of each other,〔〔(WWE.com: "History of the Intercontinental Championship" )〕 and three held both simultaneously, becoming "Eurocontinental champions".〔 Established in 1997 as the "WWF European Championship", the title incurred a brief hiatus in 1999 due to then-champion Shane McMahon's desire to retire an "undefeated champion", before finally being unified with the WWE Intercontinental Championship in 2002. Despite its name, only two holders were actually from Europe: the British Bulldog and William Regal. It became a prominent singles title of the Attitude Era, held by Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Owen Hart, Eddie Guerrero and others.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2008-09-12 )〕 It was contested in the main event of the One Night Only pay-per-view in 1997. ==History== The WWE European Championship was originally known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) European Championship. It 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. Upon winning the belt, Shawn Michaels became 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 EDT) and gave it to Mark Henry the following night on ''RAW'' (around 10 PM EDT). Chris Jericho defeated Kurt Angle in a triple threat match at Wrestlemania 2000 (by pinning Chris Benoit at around 10 PM EDT) and lost the title to Eddie Guerrero on ''RAW'' the night after (around 9 PM EDT). Jeff Hardy was the youngest champion, at 24. Diamond Dallas Page was the oldest champion, at 46. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WWE European Championship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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