Former WWE Star Says Backstage Scandal Cost Him A Title Win
A former WWE superstar has revealed that he was supposed to win the European Title in 1999, but a backstage scandal stopped it from happening.
In 1999, World Wrestling Entertainment was in the middle of the Attitude Era with several titles available for their superstars. One of those titles was the European Title, which was created in February 1997 and was first won by “The British Bulldog” Davey Boy Smith.
Some of the WWE legends that held the European Title included Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Owen Hart, X-Pac, D-Lo Brown and others.
At the 1999 Royal Rumble, X-Pac defended the European Title against Gangrel, who was part of The Brood stable. X-Pac got the win to keep the title and would go on to feud with Shane McMahon a few months later at WrestleMania 15 with Shane winning the title.
As for Gangrel, even though he worked for WWE from 1998 to 2001 in an era when the company had a lot of titles and title changes, he never held a championship in the company.
In an interview with WrestlingNewsco, Gangrel revealed that he was going to win the European Title at Royal Rumble 1999, but there was some scandal that he wasn’t involved in that ended up costing him a title run.
“I know for a fact I was supposed to win that night, but there were some disciplinary actions and I was innocent, but I got caught up in the middle of some stuff and it didn’t happen. Big scandal where somebody, I don’t know who it was, a backstage guy, he was taping people trying to sell him a bunch of steroids or something like. It was this big thing.”
“Everybody had to get disciplined that even went in there and met with the guy. I happen to be one of the guys who was in there even though I didn’t do anything or whatnot, but I just got caught up in all that. That was weird stuff.”
“I was just caught up in the wrong group. I could honestly say that it did cost me winning the European title that night.”