Mike Looks Back –The WWE European Title – Part Fourteen: Al’s European Tour

Welcome once again to Mike Looks Back!

When we left things last week; Al Snow had just defeated Perry Saturn on an episode of SmackDown to claim the European Title for the first time. Snow’s career had taken him down many different roads and avenues prior to his Euro belt triumph, and to that point it was arguably his greatest achievement as a singles star. Snow originally started out his career all the way back in the spring of 1982 if erstwhile wrestling database Cage Match is to be believed. Snow spent most of those early years working on the independent scene and playing the role of enhancement talent in the major promotions. Arguably Snow’s breakout year came in 1995, where he entrenched himself as one of the hottest unsigned talents on the scene.

Snow had started out 1995 with a fantastic bout against fellow unsigned star Chris Benoit in ECW, with the two tearing the house down at the Double Tables event at the famed ECW Arena. However, the hot prospect’s future wasn’t to be in ECW, as a spot opened up for him in Smoky Mountain Wrestling and he grabbed it with both hands. Eddie Gilbert had shown up in SMW backed up by the monstrous Unabomb (the wrestler that would eventually go on to be known as Kane) with the idea being that Gilbert and his new monster ally would feud with top team in the territory, The Rock N Roll Express. However, despite getting a strong push out of the gate in his initial taping appearance, Gilbert decided to “do a Gilbert” and completely skip town, heading over to Puerto Rico for the ill-fated last gig of his topsy-turvy career. Thus Unabomb was left without a partner and a slot became open, a slot that Al quickly filled.

Snow excelled as a cocky Heel backed up a big monster, and his act became one of the highlights of SMW’s final year. When SMW finally bit the dust, Snow had shown himself to be a versatile performer who could both wrestle and cut a promo. The WWF brought him on board and promptly spent the next couple of years saddling him with lame gimmicks that were seemingly designed to relegate Snow to the lower reaches of the card. Snow played masked characters Shinobi and Avatar, with the idea being that the WWF would be able to cash in on the Mortal Kombat craze that was taking over the world at the time. When those gimmicks flamed out, Snow was given the name Leif Cassidy and then teamed up with Marty Jannetty as The New Rockers.

Jannetty and Snow were both solid performers in the ring and could arguably have been a decent mid-card tandem if they’d just been presented in a more serious manner that leaned into their strengths. However, The New Rockers came across as a joke right from the off and the fans never took them seriously, even though they could go in the ring when called upon. Eventually Jannetty “did a Jannetty” and was ousted from the WWF at the end of 1996, leaving Cassidy as a lame-duck singles act in the lower mid-card. Snow tried to give this version of Cassidy a meaner edge, as displayed in his bouts at In Your House 12 and In Your House 13 respectively, but the character failed to really connect with the audience. It didn’t help that Leif Cassidy often lost all of his matches and wasn’t presented as any real kind of threat to the stars on the roster.

With his WWF run going nowhere, Snow was eventually loaned out to ECW in the summer of 1997, where he continued to try and evolve his character, settling on that of a crazed maniac that always talked to himself. Though this was a slight improvement on the lame Cassidy gimmick, Snow still struggled to really make a connection with the audience. That was until Snow found an unlikely accomplice that would help him rocket up the ECW ranks. Snow was unable to wrestle at the ECW November to Remember 1997 event, but a skit was shot where Al was shown in the backstage area talking to mannequin head whilst other wrestlers like Nova and Blue Meanie looked on bemused.

Introducing The Head was an absolute master-stroke, as Snow could now communicate, and even argue with, the inanimate object to truly illustrate his newfound insanity, and crowds ate it up. Snow suddenly went from just another guy on the roster to becoming one of ECW’s most popular acts. This was aided by the fact that Snow had a tremendous rave inspired entrance at the time where he would enter to The Prodigy’s “Breathe” whilst strobe lights went off and wacky camera effects played to the viewers at home, turning whichever gym or armoury ECW happened to be running that day into a Pro Wrestling version of the famed Hacienda. ECW would also hand out Styrofoam heads to all the fans in the crowd, leading to them waving and throwing them around whilst Snow entered, making his act visually striking and totally different from everything else in wrestling at the time.

Eventually the WWF decided to bring Snow back to the big leagues, and they allowed him to keep Head as well. Perhaps surprisingly to some, the act got over with the Attitude Era crowds, who saw the funny side to it all. Snow was finally an entrenched over presence in the WWF mid-card and he quickly found a niche for himself in the nascent Hardcore Division. Snow had many notable bouts for the Hardcore Title in 1998 and 1999, including a bruising collision with Road Dogg on a January episode of Raw is War. This wild clash saw the two men fight into the parking lot, in the middle of a snowstorm no less, where Snow ended up taking a Piledriver onto some crates as Road Dogg retained the belt. Another notable Snow excursion into the hardcore ranks saw him fight quite literally into the Mississippi River with Bob Holly at the February 1999 pay per view event. Al would go on to become a multiple time WWF Hardcore Champion and remains one of the names most synonymous with that division.

Snow would ultimately move away from the Hardcore division and compete more regularly in standard matches. Snow formed a tandem with Steve Blackman in 2000 known as “Head Cheese”, based on the idea that Snow was wacky and silly whilst Blackman was serious and grumpy, leading to Snow constantly annoying his partner with his hare-brained schemes. Though Head Cheese were part of a terrible WrestleMania 2000 bout with Test and Albert, their comedy skits usually landed and they were a humorous middle of the pack team back when the WWF had a reasonably stacked doubles division. Eventually Blackman would move into the Hardcore Division himself, becoming one of the more dominant champs in that belt’s history, whilst Al got dragged into the feud between The Kat and Terri Runnels, providing backup for the former against the latter’s angry bald boyfriend, Perry Saturn.

It was through battle with Saturn that Snow was able to win his first non-Hardcore belt in the WWF, and he immediately started doing something a bit different with it. During his first and second reigns with the belt, D’Lo Brown had started being introduced from a different European city every week. This was a fun little gimmick that gave his reign a bit of flavour. Al took that idea to a whole different level. For the six weeks or so that Al had the belt he would enter to the ring whilst being announced from a different European country, often with attire and music to match. For instance, when representing Germany, Snow entered wearing lederhosen with a picture of David Hasselhoff. Sadly he didn’t decide to go for a Rudi Voeller tribute by rocking a mullet with Dutch spit in it. When representing Spain he entered as a matador, doing his best Tito Santana impression along the way.

Being that this was Al Snow, it couldn’t just be straightforward though. For example, when Al represented Greece one week, he seemingly got a bit mixed up and instead of coming out with delicious Gyros for the fans or dressed like Greek mythological heroes such as Heracles or Odysseus, he instead headed out to the ring like a 1950s greaser from the movie Grease. When representing Italy, Al wore an attire resembling that of a typical New Yorker Italian stereotype rather than the type of Italian you might actually meet in Italy. The zenith of silliness however was the time that Snow came down to the ring being announced from Hong Kong in traditional martial arts style garb and a picture of Hong Kong Phooey. Hong Kong, for those of you who spent geography lessons daydreaming about your school crush and not really paying attention, isn’t actually in Europe, although Michael Cole tried to cover for Snow on commentary saying that Hong Kong was once a British colony.

Silly as these attempts were, they were at least the actions of someone who was trying to do something a bit different with the European belt. Al was leaning into the idea that the belt represented Europe and wanted to do something to try and highlight that fact, and some of his ridiculous outfits were genuinely quite humorous. When representing Transylvania, Snow came out with a full-on horror ensemble and it was honestly pretty impressive. Whereas previous title holder Saturn had mostly defended the belt in nondescript matches, Snow was on Raw and/or SmackDown every week doing something interesting with the belt, which at least made it feel like it mattered a bit more, even if the primary focus was to do wacky comedy.

Ultimately this aspect of Al’s run with the belt was the most memorable thing about it, as in-ring there wasn’t a lot to shout about. Al was a solid performer between the ropes and could have a watchable bout with the majority of the roster, so his clashes with the likes of X-Pac and Tazz were tolerable yet brief. The bout with Tazz barely lasted 90 seconds on a September 2000 episode of Raw is War and was more a backdrop for the continued feud between Tazz and colour commentator Jerry Lawler, but the action itself was done well for the time it lasted, with Lawler eventually hitting Tazz with the aforementioned picture of The Hoff so that Snow could get a cheeky roll-up. Snow did have some hard-hitting bouts with Test and Albert on separate occasions as well, where the action itself was again totally fine but the bouts themselves were rather short and existed mainly to plant the seeds for Snow’s next challenger.

Overall I think it’s fair to say that Al Snow’s run was an amusing diversion more than being an especially good reign. It felt different from other less interesting runs with the belt, such as the ones enjoyed by Val Venis and Saturn. Snow’s gimmick was very silly, but it was very much in his wheelhouse and he played it to the hilt. Though it was somewhat annoying to see the European belt being treated in a less-than-serious manner, it at least had an identity and a reason for existing whilst Snow held it, which is more than it had with some of the other champions we’ve covered up to this point. Doing such a ham-fisted and silly attempt at paying homage to the continent of Europe also laid the groundwork for the only real major feud of Snow’s run with the belt. An actual European would take umbrage with Snow’s foolhardy attempts to appeal to those on the continent, but we’ll cover that next week when Mike Looks Back.