WWE News & Rumors: European Title Returns After TLC?
A deleted social media post always stirs controversy. A lot of WWE fans, however, should thank the lovely manager Lana for her mistake of spilling the beans about the possible return of the WWE European Championship belt.
Speculations on the return of the European belt arose when Alexander Rusev clinched the United States Championship from Sheamus last month. The triumph of the Hero of the Russian Confederation against the Celtic warrior was done to complete the "storyline of Rusev defeating his patriotic challengers and taking America's championship," the Dailyddt.com reported.
The Bulgarian Brute would turn the US championship into the Russian championship, similar to what Lance Storm did when he turned the WCW title into the Canadian championship, the same report added.
Fans think they were right when Rusev's manager Lana posted on Instagram over the weekend a photo of the European championship belt, with #RAW next to it -- and eventually deleted it.
Wrestlingrumors.net, however, was able to copy the photo she posted before she discarded it.
The picture showed not an old title bet but a new one since the new WWE logo is embedded on gold at the top. Fansided.com also said that it "seems pretty crystal clear from looking at the picture that this is not a Photoshop job."
Despite the winning of Rusev, or Miroslav Barnyashev in real life, via submission against Jack Swagger on the 2014 "TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs... and Stairs" pay-per-view on Sunday night, the long-missed belt remained elusive.
Wrestling fans still remained adamant that the belt will be unveiled on Monday night at RAW.
The WWE European Championship was first introduced to the wrestling world in 1997. The first European champion, British Bulldog, fought for the title against Owen Heart in the finals after a series of bouts held in Germany.
The Bleacher Report provided some facts about the European Championship:
British Bulldog had been the longest reigning champion for 206 days. Jeff Jarrett and Chris Jericho had each of the belt slipped off their waists only after a day -- the shortest time the title was held. Jarrett gave the title to Mark Henry in 1999 and Jericho lost the lost the title to Eddie Guerrero in 2000.
European champions William Regal and D'Lo Brown have the greatest number of title reigns at four.
D'Lo Brown, Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam belong to the elite group of champions called Eurocontinental champions since they held both the European and Intercontinental Championship belts at the same time.
The European Championship went on hiatus after July 22, 2002, when then Intercontinental champion Rob Van Dam defeated the European title holder Jeff Hardy in a ladder match. The match unified the European and Intercontinental Championships.
The European championship title appears in "WWE Wrestlemania X8," "WWE '12," "WWE '13," "WWE 2K14" and "WWE 2K15."