The concept of professional wrestling, considering the fact that the outcome of each match is pre-determined, is to enthrall an audience by maintaining the illusion of competition through high drama and athleticism. Like all competitions (and yes, there is competition in the world of professional wrestling, albeit not quite what you’re probably thinking of) there has to be a winner, a champion; one competitor who can be heralded above all others as being the best and greatest of them all. Someone who is worthy of being recognized as the face of a given organization, but more importantly someone that people will pay to see in the ring. Ignoring the processes that wrestling promoters have gone through over the years to determine which of their athletes should be allowed to represent their company, it goes without saying that because of the nature of the professional wrestling business that these champions require a symbol by which they and their accomplishment could be recognized. A visible emblem that fans could distinguish as a mark of victory and dominance. So dawns the idea of the championship belt.
Back in the 1960’s and 70’s, grapplers like Bruno Sammartino, Buddy Rogers, Lou Thesz and others were able to draw crowds in the thousands, and all at one point or another held what were recognized at the time as legitimate world’s championship titles. In this era, audiences still believed that professional wrestling matches were true sport, not a form of entertainment as is accepted nowadays. Although they would be thought of as plain and boring, the championship titles these men wore were designed with a sense of regality and of distinction. They weren’t necessarily ornate or intricate in their presentation (some were more elaborate than others, of course), but they did the job of providing the audience a way of recognizing who the champion was.
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| The WWWF World Championship |
As the wrestling business expanded in the 1980’s and 90’s with the proliferation of cable television, belt designs became more intricate as promoters became aware of the fact that their product was no longer being broadcast to black & white televisions but color tubes that would further heighten the experience of viewers at home. The World Wide Wrestling Federation condensed into the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling sprang to life from the dreams of a billionaire, meanwhile the National Wrestling Alliance and American Wrestling Association found themselves being seen as suddenly irrelevant despite having been so prominent and respected less than a decade prior. A third major company was just taking root in the early 1990’s, that being Extreme Championship Wrestling. Ironically enough, ECW at one point in time was a territory (i.e., a subsidiary) within the National Wrestling Alliance (it was then known as NWA-ECW, and “ECW” stood for Eastern Championship Wrestling) but seceded from the organization in possibly the most bold manner conceivable when Shane Douglas was awarded a then vacant NWA world title only to abandon it immediately and instead take up the first ECW world title.
Not content to send their champions out into the broadcast ether wearing belts that didn’t fit the extravagance of the period, WWF unveiled championship title redesigns in a seemingly evolving fashion with one design being replaced by another every so often. Released between 1965 and 1998, there were at least eight revisions of the WWF heavyweight championship. Conversely, WCW only used two versions of their heavyweight title – the “big gold belt” and another which was installed in 1991 after Ric Flair was fired from the company but took the belt with him (and appeared on WWF TV with it, no less) after signing on with WWF – and the ECW world title never really changed at all.
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| The "Winged Eagle" WWF World Heavyweight Championship |
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| The second WCW Heavyweight Championship used to replace the "Big Gold" |
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| The ECW World Championship |
The law of natural selection applies to business as well as nature. In 2001, WWF acquired the properties of both WCW and ECW (they would also purchase what was left of the AWA and several other smaller companies, primarily for the reason of getting access to their tape libraries; retrospective DVDs have become a significant piece of the company’s product line), making them essentially the only major professional wrestling company left in the United States. A title unification match was held not long after the merger of WCW and WWF (the ECW world title was not included in the unification, it would remain in a de-activated state for many years until it was resurrected in 2006 when ECW was revived as a brand thanks largely to a nostalgia movement), wherein the two belts would be combined into one championship. Chris Jericho, who is recognized as having been the final WCW world champion, would emerge as the undisputed WWF champion, a moniker that had not been pinned on anyone in nearly 50 years. However, a new belt for the undisputed champion would not be christened until the summer of 2002, resulting in the undisputed champion having to carry around two belts (the “big gold” and the “big eagle”). By this time Triple H was the title holder and World Wrestling Federation had metamorphosed into World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as the result of a lawsuit having been brought against them over usage of the “WWF” acronym by the World Wildlife Fund – the other WWF.
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| WWE Undisputed Championship |
The WWE undisputed championship wouldn’t last long, though. Having hurriedly absorbed the roster of WCW, WWE found itself bursting at the seams with talent and so the idea of the “brand extension” was born. This new configuration of their television programming was designed to make it seem as if there were two rival ancillary divisions to the company as certain stars would be assigned exclusively to either the Raw or Smackdown television shows, thus creating the illusion of competition even though there was none. The then disputed undisputed championship came to Smackdown with Brock Lesnar and was converted into the WWE Championship. Meanwhile on Raw a new version of the “big gold belt” was brought back, being awarded to Triple H, and made into the World Championship.
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| The "Big Gold" Belt |
It was in the years following these changes to the structure of WWE that the WWE Championship, the title that most fans recognize as being WWE’s most iconic belt, was transformed into something wholly different than what it had ever been before, aesthetically speaking. A young, up and coming talent – who had gone by the name of Prototype while working in other promotions but transitioned into a gimmick that made him out to be a white rapper after being brought into WWE – burst onto the scene and progressed up the ranks of WWE’s roster quickly, going on to win the United States championship and eventually the WWE Championship. In both instances, this wrestler was given a belt that seemed to suit only him. This wrestler is none other than John Cena.
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| John Cena with his WWE United States Championship |
There have been several champions to receive custom belts (granted, some weren’t so much “custom” as they were the same belt design with different colored leather backing) during a run at the top of WWF/WWE. An interesting piece of trivia regarding these belts is that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was supposed to have been the recipient of a custom piece that featured his “Brahma bull” logo instead of the traditional eagle imagery found on most of WWE’s championship designs. Rather unbelievably, this belt was never used because it was allegedly lost in the mail – needless to say, whoever has it is holding a rather sought after piece of stolen, or “misplaced” property. Stone Cold Steve Austin brought in a belt that was purely his, the “smoking skull” belt. So it was that a precedent existed for a champion, especially one seen as such a valuable commodity as Rocky, Austin, and Cena (to call the two of them cash cows would be a vast understatement; Cena is nearing a level iconography not seen since Hulk Hogan even though, ironically enough, neither he nor Hogan have ever been viewed as technically gifted wrestlers but incredible entertainers who knew how to illicit reactions from their audience instead), to be given a belt that has a design specific to their own personality.
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| A toy replica of The Rock's custom "Brahma Bull" WWE World Championship |
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| Stone Cold Steve Austin's "Smoking Skull" belt |
Regardless, there has never been a belt so grandiose (some might say gaudy) in its design as the one John Cena was given when he began his reign as WWE Champion, the “spinner belt” as it has become known.
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| John Cena and the WWE "Spinner Belt" |
Taking a massive cue in its design from the popularity of jewelry and automotive accessories more readily identified with hip-hop culture, the “spinner belt” has been in use since 2005. As if you couldn’t tell, it’s called the “spinner belt” because of the fact that the center plate spins, much like the car rims it is intended to imitate. The only thing with more bling-bling than this belt might be a Super Bowl championship ring but even those would seem miniature by comparison to it because of its size. Despite the fact that it has been passed around extensively since its debut, there have been no major changes to its design (one of the side plates on this belt originally denoted that it corresponded to the Raw or Smackdown brand as it has called both home at one point or another, but this has since been replaced) however there have been several variations on it; one to make it more centric to Edge which featured his “Rated-R Superstar” logo and another where the spinning center plate was made stationary.
As if the “spinner” wasn’t absurd enough, WWE one-upped themselves in creating the Diva’s Championship – a title intended to follow the pattern set forth by the World and WWE titles, only this belt would be to recognize a female grappler (the WWE Women’s Championship being its’ alternate). The Diva’s Championship has become known in certain circles, quite appropriately, as the “tramp stamp belt” since it so strongly resembles a tattoo you might find on the lower back of a young lady.
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| The WWE Diva's Championship, better known as the "Tramp Stamp" belt |
As of this writing there is a plan in place to unify the Diva’s and Women’s championships at the 2010 Night of Champions pay-per-view event, meaning there’s a strong chance that by the time you read this the Diva’s belt will no longer be in use. With any luck, the unified women’s title will have a bit more class in its design than its predecessor.
To show that I am not completely against WWE’s recent championship belt re-designs, I will give credit where it is due for their recently released unified tag team championship belts. During the brand extension there had been two tag team divisions within WWE, one competing for the World tag team championship and another going after the WWE tag team championship. Much like what transpired with the WCW and WWF heavyweight titles, the dual tag team championships were combined after Primo and Carlito Colón defeated John Morrison and The Miz to lead to the creation of the unified tag team championship at Wrestlemania XXV in 2009. The unified titles would be defended across brand lines, meaning that challengers from either Raw or Smackdown could face whoever held these championships. Also similar to what happened with the unified world champion, the tag team champions would be required to carry a pair of belts but this trend only lasted a bit more than a year as the 4 belts were retired in August of 2010 with the introduction of new belts, declared the simply the WWE Tag Team Championship.
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| The new WWE Tag Team Championship belts |
They may look like gigantic shiny new pennies, but at least they look like something a reputable champion wouldn’t mind being identified with.
My point in bringing up this abbreviated history of professional wrestling championships is that I, quite honestly, cannot stand these belts, but especially the “spinner belt”. In my eyes, it is a complete deterioration of everything a title should characterize – there is no class to it, nothing that proclaims it as being a representation of the “sport of kings”. Instead, it’s something that can be cloned by toy manufacturers and sold to fans seeking to have their own belt, even if it is a cheap reproduction.
There’s another huge issue of mine, the idea of replica belts in general doesn’t set well with me. As I mentioned before, the concept behind a championship of any kind is that it is something which is very difficult to attain, something that people work their entire lives to achieve. Yet nowadays Joe Schmoe can plunk down $100 and get his very own world championship belt, or even worse Mr. John Q. Stiff’em wrestling promoter can buy a replica belt – a replica of the “big gold” for example, one of the most easily identifiable belts in the history of the business – and slap his independent federation’s logo onto it, then start calling it his promotions’ “world” title (the concept of a promotion that doesn’t ever run shows outside of one city claiming to have a “world” title is a topic so ridiculous I won’t even bother going into). For one, promoters like this insult the intelligence of fans, and two they further ruin the concept of a championship belt by giving their top guy a belt made from rubber, plastic, and recycled soda cans.
Am I saying that I feel it is wrong that World Wrestling Entertainment is making money off of selling merchandise like replica belts? No, absolutely not. It’s their objective as a business to market products that will allow them to continue to operate and, with any luck, make a profit. Did I wish they were still interested in preserving the nobility of professional wrestling’s past in the process? Absolutely!
Being the only major wrestling promotion left in the US has allowed them to essentially dictate the direction of the industry, at least for the most part as it exists in this country. There are a few stalwart independent promotions like Ring of Honor that continue to fight the good fight by hanging onto the traditions of professional wrestling’s past, and promotions in other nations like Japan, Mexico, and Canada have maintained their resistance to outside trends. Even so, their influence on the compared to WWE they are but a WWE is attempting to live up to the “entertainment” in their title by becoming a multi-faceted entity with divisions of the company now focused on books, movies, and other forms of media. Seeing as how even the term professional wrestling isn’t welcome on their programming anymore (“sports entertainment” has taken its place and wrestlers aren’t referred to as wrestlers, rather they are “superstars”), it should be expected that what’s left of the legacy of professional wrestling will continue to flicker and fade with time. The elegance once associated with championship belts is evidently already gone.
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