On the July 22nd 2002 episode of Raw, the European Championship was rendered inactive. It was absorbed into the Intercontinental Championship and the title belt itself didn’t even appear on the show - its final on screen appearance was the previous night at the Vengeance PPV. 

The European title was always third tier. It was originally introduced in 1997 - the British Bulldog defeated Owen Hart in the tournament finals on a special episode of Raw is War recorded in Germany on February 26th. Initially it was intended to only be defended in Europe but that was quickly abandoned in favour of making it another midcard title for the men to fight over.

The championship had highs and lows over its five years of existence and was held by some great (Eddie Guerrero, William Regal, Christian, The Hardyz) and some not so great performers (Mideon). Personally, I always liked the European title a lot. I like the way it looked and I’ve always found I was drawn towards lower and midcarders on the rise - I love an underdog and it just so happens that a lot of my favourites held that title.

Was getting rid of it the right thing to do? Honestly, yes. Raw didn’t need four men’s singles championship after the brand split and in hindsight they should have moved it to Smackdown so both shows could have their own midcard title. That is ultimately what happened as Smackdown introduced its own midcard title - the United States Championship - in July 2003. In a wider sense, the plan in 2002 was to absorb every singles title into a single World Championship to give it as much importance as possible. That was a mistake and was quickly rectified by bringing back the Intercontinental title only 7 months after it was also absorbed into the World title.