This past Monday saw the introduction of the 24/7 Championship to WWE, and while it was
originally greeted with groans and jeers, by the end of the night it seemed the crowd
had turned a corner, with R-Truth, Robert Roode and Titus O’Neil providing some nice
comedy and brief title reigns.
Having said that, while the gimmick of the title may have some fans excited, that doesn’t
stop the actual belt itself looking horrendous. The 24/7 Championship is just the latest is
a long line of championships in WWE history, and for every great looking belt like the
winged eagle WWF Championship, there’s a Diva’s Championship waiting around the corner
to remind you that everything is terrible.
Before we hop into the video though, make sure to press the thumbs up, subscribe and
enable notifications, and leave us a comment letting us know what you think the ugliest
WWE belt to ever exist is!
With that said, my name is “Chopper” Pete Quinnell and let’s take a look at some of
the ugliest WWE title belts in history.
Let’s start with the most recent offender, shall we? This past Monday saw Mick Foley
have the unfortunate duty of having to reveal the 24/7 Championship to an indifferent crowd.
While he was talking about the belt before revealing it, part of it was already poking
out of the bag and you could already tell from here it was going to be a stinker.
The green strap is fine, in theory, but the plate being plain gold with a basic 24/7 logo
inscribed on the front hardly inspires anything significant in the audience. It genuinely
looks like a cheap knock off toy or a fan-made belt, not one made by the largest wrestling
company in the world. It’s almost as if this championship was rushed into production
after a panicked decision or something. But that’s crazy talk, right?
Hopefully the entertainment value of the belt can outweigh the negatives of the design,
because my god, it’s going to need to. There’s some potential for great comedy here, but
let’s hope it’s actual comedy and not...WWE comedy.
*sigh* The butterfly Diva’s championship is a reminder of everything that was wrong
with women’s wrestling in time gone by. Because you see, the women are all precious
little butterflies that don’t really wrestle. Leave that to the men, ladies.
The design of the belt itself is awful, it looks more like a tacky tramp stamp than it
does a supposedly prestigious championship belt. Imagine training all your life to become
a wrestler, finally ascending to the lofty heights of the WWE, only having to find out
you have to fight for a crappy pink butterfly.
Well at least we’ve moved past this and it was a long time ago, right? When was the
title replaced again? 2016?! Christ that’s only 3 years ago, it feels like this a relic
from the 1990s, but it was only introduced in 2008! Well at least 2016 saw the removal
of a disgraceful belt and they learnt their lesson, never to be repeated again. Hm? What’s
that?
Summerslam 2016 saw Finn Balor take on Seth Rollins for the brand new Universal Championship
in a match that unfortunately saw Balor injured from an errant powerbomb into the barricade.
While Balor’s injury was very unfortunate and would see him relinquish the title the
next night after his victory, one of the main talking points was the championship itself.
You see, the Universal championship was sitting on a plinth next to the ring during the match,
and any time the camera panned to it, the crowd would boo, incessantly. Now there’s
a reason it was receiving a whole ton of boos, and that reason is because it looks dreadful.
The current WWE Championship design isn’t the greatest it’s been, but it’s at least
passable. The Universal Championship is the same as the WWE Championship, but they just
took the black and gold colours and made them red. I think Vince McMahon must have heard
the phrase “paint the town red” and thought it would apply to championship belts too.
It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.
This is one of the most infamous belt designs of all time, and I’d say deservedly so.
From 2005-2014, 9 years, the WWE Championship was a spinner belt. The center section of
the belt spun, like a spinner on a “souped up” car. Why. Why would it do that. It’s
a belt, not an accessory.
This was one of the many reasons fans held resentment towards John Cena, especially in
the later years of its run. Cena was the one who, in kayfabe, brought in the new design
because it worked with his character at the time. And that’s fine! Daniel Bryan introduced
the hemp championship last year, and it worked great! Stone Cold’s Smoking Skull belt worked
as well! Do you know why they worked? Because when they lost their, the designs reverted
back to the originals.
When Cena lost the belt, it should have reverted back to what it once was. But no, wrestlers
such as CM Punk, Jeff Hardy, Randy Orton and Triple H all won and had to carry around a
title belt with a spinner on it. Christ. And it wasn’t CM Punk, the top star at the time
who promised change to the audience and went on tirades against John Cena and WWE as a
whole, that changed the design of the belt. No, it was The Rock. After he beat CM Punk.
Because of course it was.
Wahey it’s the women’s championship! Not the Diva’s championship! Everyone rejoice.
Except for when Laycool won it. Yes you heard that right. Two wrestlers, Layla and Michelle
McCool, won the singles title, the women’s championship. It’s like the Freebird rule,
but if it made no sense.
The worst part of this team winning the championship though is what happened to the belt. Instead
of one of them carrying the championship, or doing some really corny thing where they
walk out standing next to each other and wear the one belt around both their waists, they
split the belt. Not as in, each of them gets their own belt to carry, no no. They literally,
split the belt.
It’s got a tear down the middle. Like someone that’s really really strong just got the
belt and tore it in two. It looks absolutely ridiculous. Layla and Michelle McCool had
to walk out with half a championship each, looking they stumbled on some scraps of a
broken championship and pretended to be a champion. Awful.
So you know when I said before that unique designs for individuals holding championships
is fine? Yeah, well, maybe scratch that if their unique design looks anything like Tommy
Dreamer’s New York Hardcore Championship from 2002.
Hoo boy, this is a stinker. It’s a Hardcore Championship. But it’s got a New York license
plate attached to the front. And a statue of liberty. NEW YORK EVERYONE. You can still
see the belt behind all the new attachments on the front, it literally looks like someone
who’s ashamed of liking wrestling has tried to cover it up to make it not look like a
wrestling belt in a desperate attempt to convince whoever looks at it that it’s a normal souvenir.
It’s not. It’s stupid.
This will be one of the first designs that will spring to mind if you ask a modern wrestling
fan about ugly designs. I mean, my god, they’re literally pennies in so many ways. They’re
round, look like they’re made of copper, and essentially worthless.
These belts lasted for 6 years, and believe or not, were the Unified Tag Team Championships
when they were introduced, combining the World Tag Team Championships, and the WWE Tag Team
Championships. Want to guess who the inaugural champions were? The Colons.
Imagine the combination of two sets of tag team championships resulting in worse belts
than either of the original pairs. Progression.
Now I will admit, I know absolutely nothing about this belt considering it was nullified
8 years before I was born, but all you need to do is look at a picture of it. I wouldn’t
recommend doing that for too long though, it’s rather ugly.
A green strap with gold plating? Now where have I seen that before? The difference with
this one though, is that it has about 17 million different pieces of plating all along the
straps as well as a bland middle plate that has some text on it that is basically impossible
to read without some other colour in it. It’s woefully boring and dreadfully bland, and
not really befitting of the top champion in the company.
The title lasted for an astounding seven years before being switched up. Thank god.
This one hurts me to put on this list, because I loved NXT when it first started. Seth Rollins
becoming the inaugural champion, besting...Jinder Mahal...okay maybe it wasn’t that great,
but still I really liked this championship, but I’m being forced to put it on this list
by forces greater than myself. And by that I mean it was part of the article I used to
compile this list.
In all seriousness though, the title is really bland. Sure it has the giant X in the middle,
but then it’s just the letters on either side of it. There’s no engravings, markings
or other distinctive features, it’s just kind of...there. Not exactly what you want
for the top championship of your new, exciting and fresh brand.
Both this and the NXT Women’s titles were changed in quick succession in 2017, with
Asuka becoming the first person to obtain the new design of the women’s belt, and
Bobby Roode retaining his title over Shinsuke Nakamura to become the first person to hold
the new design of the men’s title.
Of course the new title would go on to become a famous title belt, hell it even got a name
from Tomasso Ciampa. Way to go Goldie. Part of me will always miss the big X belt though,
Seth Rollins with his blonde streak wrestling in trunks, Big E doing 5 count gimmick, Bo
Dallas...yeah ok never mind. I’m just nostalgic.
So those were some of the ugliest championship belts in WWE history, let us know what you
thought in the comments! While you’re there make sure to press the thumbs up, subscribe,
and enable notifications! A special thank you to our lovely pledgehammers on Patreon,
some of whom you can see scrolling below me right now! Press the videos to my right to
be taken to even more content! I’ve been “Chopper” Pete Quinnell, and that was
wrestling.