Professional wrestling as a business has many aspects that are immediately identified by the general public. Flamboyant gimmicks and entrances customized tights and costumes, valets, managers, etc. But perhaps the most recognizable and noticeable things about the business are the title belts, sometimes known affectionately as "straps."
The use of title belts in several sports goes back many years. An early English Heavyweight Boxing champion was awarded a belt made of leather and lined with silver "lions teeth." Perhaps one of the most famous trophy belts in sports history was the ornate Heavyweight Championship belt given to boxer John J. Sullivan (a copy of which can now be purchased from Valen Originals for those of you that follow the pugilistic world as well…).
Martial arts have long used belts (obi) to designate rank and awards and several cultures have used sashes and ornamented belts to designate rank and high honor. Today, martial arts organizations in styles such as Muy Thai Kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, "Shootfighting" (UFC, PRIDE, Pancrase), and others use title belts as well.
But nowhere has the trophy belt become such a part of the business as in professional wrestling. In fact, an entire business has arisen from the purchase of title belts and belt "replicas" by fans (or "marks"). I haven't seen any actual reports on the amount of money taken in by Figures, Inc., the company that is producing the WCW and ECW replicas, but based upon the number of sales offered on auctions such as wrestleauction.com and ebay, and the number that show up in fan's hands during wrestling shows, it would appear to be substantial.
Yet, how much are the belts regarded within the business itself? Are they merely gaudy and ornate props, the quality of which is simply based on the promoter or wrestlers' ability to have them made? Or are at least some of the titles that they represent actually regarded as "trophies" worthy of effort and competition by wrestlers?
I was involved in a series of posts discussing titles, title histories and ideas of bringing back some of the "traditional" titles in the NWA when a poster simply identifying himself as "a worker" commented that "90% of the people in the locker room didn't give a damn" about titles and that belts were just props. This was similar to the statement that Vince Russo made in an interview concerning the frequency in which the WCW title had been "exchanged" during a period of time. Since the titles were part of "sports entertainment", it didn't matter how they were handled as long as they drew interest. This included putting the WCW Cruiserweight title on such "talent" as "Oklahoma," or on a female wrestler like Madusa, or the WCW title on an actor, or Russo himself. Russo and others inferred that it had "always been that way" behind the wall of kayfabe.
Perhaps in some cases this was true. But I've been surprised to find that many of the legends of the business (and some of the newer talent as well) actually have a lot of regard for the history of various titles and for the title belts themselves. For some it's due to the memories of good times that the titles bring them and the enjoyment they had defending them. Don Curtis noted that the tag team title he held with Mark Lewin was one that he held in high regard for those reasons.
For some, the titles are a source of pride in that they showed the worker to be the top draw or top heel in the company, especially in promotions where the champion was one of the owners or the booker that would "do the job" to put the new champion over. In the case of the NWA title (prior to the nationalization of the WWF and WCW), it meant that the champion was literally the "top dog" that had earned the right to be recognized as the best in the business.
I believe that that is the reason the NWA "Globe" belt is now one of the most sought after replicas by collectors, even though critics of the group continue to claim that it had "died." For many wrestlers that I have talked to, the belts have come to represent the titles and the titles are just as "legitimate" to them as in any other sport. Sure, politics played a lot in the game but it was hard to argue that men like Lou Thesz, Harley Race, Buddy Rogers, Terry and Dory Funk, Ric Flair, Brett Hart and (yes, I'll even give credit to the guy here) Hulk Hogan weren't at the top of the game during their title reigns. While not pure "contests" at times, wrestling is and continues to be a competition among performers and titles should continue to be the goal and reward for the top man, team or woman in the business.
Some wrestlers still use the belts that they have bought or won over the years in independent promotions but still appreciate them for what they are; unique works of art. But for a group that "doesn't give a damn" about belts, there are sure a lot of wrestlers out there that have a collection of their own.
My pal Rick Michaels in NWA Wildside in Georgia has a "wrestling room" in his home that houses his collection. Dusty Rhodes has several straps in his collection and my former team-mate in Triple X, Curtis Thompson, still has his CWA Tag Team Title strap as a prized possession. Reggie Parks (a wrestling legend and premier belt-maker) and his partner Dave Millican, as well as Joe Marshall at J-Mar belts, spend quite a bit of time making belts that are replicas of titles wrestlers have won for their personal collections. In fact, even the design of belts has now become a concern of wrestling promotions and the current WWF singles belts (World, IC and Women's as well as the customized "Stone Cold Smoking Skull" belt) are trademarked and cannot be duplicated, even by Marshall without WWFE permission.
I freely admit to being one of the biggest belt marks in the world, although I'm not financially able to have the type of collection that some of my friends in the Yahoo! Wrestling Belt Collectors Club do. Some of these folks have paid anywhere from $400 to $2000 to have belts made that replicate some of the famous title belts in the business and for customized belts of the fan's own design. The most popular replicas (other than the Figures, Inc. belts) appear to be the WWF World Title belt used from 1988 to 1998, the NWA "Globe Dome" World Title, the "old style" WWF Intercontinental Title belt, and the old NWA Television Title belt.
The market has gotten such that belts made by Parks, Millican (or by Reggie and Dave together), Joe Marshall or Kevin Rhodes at Legacy Belts can be auctioned on Ebay for large sums. Actual "ring used" belts are even more in demand as "collectibles." How popular have they become? Wrestling title belts have even been featured on several popular syndicated "collectibles" shows along with other sports memorabilia.
A totally unscientific poll that I did showed the "worker's" estimates to be a bit off. While titles are certainly not treated as "legit" as they were in the past, they are still very important to most of the workers in the business today. And title belts, instead of being simply "props" have come to represent the memories of many fans and their love for the business as well as a very active business in and of itself.
Note: For more information on the Belt Collectors Club, check out the groups' main page in Yahoo! Clubs. Reggie Parks Belts and Dave Millican have a home page located at the NWA MidWest website,
