Five belts that were made by a wrestler who held them including D-Lo Brown and the European Title, Lord Steven Regal and the WCW Title – TOP LIVE LIST

Wade Keller and I had a chance to talk on an episode of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post-Show after this week’s AEW Dynamite, and most of the talk coming out of a solid episode of Dynamite was about the creation of another new championship. While it’s cool that the legacy of this championship will loosely be based on the lineage of the NWA National Championship that once existed on TBS, it still seems unnecessary. For one, there are far too many title belts in wrestling, let alone the AEW universe, and most of those don’t matter.

If you’re signed to an AEW contract, you have the ability to cross between AEW and ROH. That gives you access to the exclusive opportunity to win a championship and go down in the history books as someone who held that title belt. The history books get pretty full of “elite” talent when you can chase the AEW World Championship (men’s and women’s), the United Championship (the Continental Championship and International Championship), the National Championship, the TNT Championship (or TBS for the women), Tag Team Titles (also women’s), Trios Titles, ROH Titles for men and women, ROH TV Titles for each gender, as well as both options in a Pure Title, and ROH’s Tag and Trios titles.

That’s a whole lot of belts! If the people pushing you to invest your money into gold are correct, wrestling promoters are going to be the richest people in the financial apocalypse! And what do these titles mean? There are even more options in WWE, but most of them serve a purpose. The reason there has been no National Champion for over 40 years is because it was folded into the U.S. Championship, as there was no need for both belts being active. If there are too many titles, they can’t mean as much, which means holding a title doesn’t mean as much to the legacy of a career.

In 2025 in pro wrestling, it takes more than winning a title to build your legacy. It’s only a part of it. Drew McIntyre may be in the best spot, where in a world where there are more titles than ever, his story right now is not being able to win one, making people pay potentially more attention to him now than they may were he the champion. Drew does the best with what he is given, and it’s the character people come back for. If he had a title, I have no doubt that he’d make that title mean something. If Drew were given the Speed Championship, it would be the best run anyone ever had with that title.

I love seeing when a performer makes the championship matter. As little as The Miz locking the WWE Logo on the Spinner Belt in a “M” placement or Roman Reigns having his long reign after a fresh heel turn and character development, these performers left different levels of their own stamp on the titles they held. I came up with five title runs where the performers made it memorable.

Santino Marella

Oh how I wish that Vince McMahon could have followed through on so many great ideas that were dropped too soon. The setup was perfect. The longest reign that anyone had with the Intercontinental Championship for decades was The Honky Tonk Man. Not exactly a performer who popped the territory or left this wonderful legacy behind that the WWE had built on. At one point there was a great comedic wrestler who was fun to watch and listen to. Kids loved him and his Cobra, and for those that follow fun comedy wrestling Like Mr. Iguana or The Blue Meanie, Santino Marella was a weekly highlight.

With one of the runs he had with the title, the “Honk-a-Meter” was introduced. A countdown to how many days he would have help the championship to beat HTM’s record. It didn’t even get to the fun part where the countdown was getting close, as it would have been just as fun to see Santino lose just shy of the record as it would have been to see him play the air trombone at breaking it.

Al Snow/D-Lo Brown

I had to place it as a tie, because both did the same gimmick, and did it well. The European Championship was the definition of meaningless title. Introduced to grow a market and make Davey Boy Smith a bigger star without having to have him disrupt other title stories (what it seems may be the case in AEW with Bobby Lashley right now), the European Championship was crowned on an overseas edition of Raw. After the growth plans changed, so did the meaning of that championship. It was another belt for people to wrestle for, but wasn’t defended in major matches in the U.S. or when in Europe.

When both D-Lo Brown and Al Snow help that championship, they embraced the “European” aspect and came out representing different countries in Europe each week. My favorite was when they were announced from France, they’d wear berets and eat croissants. Good use of cheap heat.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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Lord Steven Regal

When William Regal came to America to wrestle for WCW, he was full of experience, but he was young and unknown by the audience. A great way to get him in front of people and to use his talents was to make him the WCW TV Champion. The TV Title was defended basically bi-weekly, where they’d hype a match for a week, and the champion would defend the following week. These matches were often for 10-minutes or “TV time remaining” giving easy outs for a heel champion to keep his title on technicality without being a dominant champion. They would be able to showcase Regal against a variety of babyface opponents, giving them someone to wrestle, keeping their name meaningful in a short feud they wouldn’t necessarily have to win to look strong. An opponent could easily lose to interference from a third character, launching a story from the match, but keeping Regal as the backbone of the division.

Christian Cage

What the TNT Title gave Christian, was TV time, and when he got that time, he used it. Much like Cody Rhodes did, Christian left because he felt undervalued and had something to prove to his bosses, fans, and to himself. When Christian left for TNA from WWE, it allowed him to get the respect he deserved when given the opportunity.

Each time opportunity comes Christian’s way, he makes the most of it. As shocking as it was to hear him take shots at wrestlers whose real life fathers had died used in the context of a wrestling story, it worked. Christian knows how to walk right up to a line, even poke his finger over, but not disrupt anything over the line itself. It’s a skill that can’t be taught, and he has it.

Ric Flair

From the way he disrobed to show the belt, to the way he’d hand it to the referee, to what he would do to retain it, no one made the World Heavyweight Championship matter more. Ric was proud to call himself the champ. It was his identity for much of his life, either holding or chasing that gold strap.

Honorable mention: John Cena

I’m not a John Cena guy when it comes to his in ring career. He just wasn’t the guy for me. My kids loved him, so I assume there were many dads that felt that way about Hulk Hogan. That said, mad respect where it’s due for all he’s done for wrestling, and his US Title run with an open challenge format, the two spinning title designs, and the hustle he put into his championship reigns.