TOP FIVE PRO WRESTLING TITLE BELTS: From the WWE “Winged Eagle” to the ECW World Title belt, the design of these belts represents distinct design matching the era

In many professions, there is a goal that you’re working toward. Maybe it’s promotions, especially when tied to a pay raise. Some are incentivized by trips, rankings, or employee of the month perks. I’ve also had the job where not being fired was the award itself. In professional wrestling, you chase title belts.

A title victory is what makes you go into the history books. They can remove footage, ignore it ever happened, or be used as a target to mock the company’s own history, but they can’t change the fact that at that moment, the company believed in you. Decisions in creative centered around you as a main character on their television show.

Be it the World Heavyweight Championship, part of a tag team, or the workhorse/rising star titles, all are important and historical – well… unless it was a title defended under 24/7 rules. They all hold their specific place in a company. I’ve even come around to enjoying the WWE Speed Championship, and how it changes the pace and style of a match. Be it the design, lineage, or simple childhood nostalgia, I’ve come up with my list of favorite title belts.

5. WWE U.S. Spinner Title

When writing these lists, many times I come up with four choices right off the bat, then wade through all the options for the fifth choice. Most of the times, like in this case, I could pick a different one if you asked me later today after lunch. This one is my number five today, for a few reasons.

At the time in hip-hop culture, spinning rims were all the rage. You’d listen to third cost rap (that’s Houston’s rap scene). All the time rapper would talk about when their car stopped, the wheels stayed spinning. It was a time that WWE was in step with actual culture in that era, where that wasn’t always the case. I’ve always liked U.S. Championships (more on that later), and the red and blue makes a belt pop.

Then you had this rising star, who was embracing the hip-hop culture that I was listening to at the time, living in Texas myself, winning what went back and forth from a workhorse title to a rising star title. This was a rocket to see how he performed with it, and was his stepping stone to winning his first WWE Championship.

From a business perspective, it sold a lot of belts, and still does (replicas available at http://Nerdstalgia.Shop), and inspired one of the best selling title belts in the WWE Championship Spinner Title. While I’m never personally a fan of the top prize being changed, and it was past its date when it came to culture cred, I can’t deny the business reasons behind it.

4. ECW World Heavyweight

In a world where I was a teenager, wrestling wasn’t cool. The Shockmaster wearing a bedazzled Storm Trooper helmet on WCW, and on WWF’s shows, the occupational gimmicks were lame too. Most people my age had given up on the “Hulk Hogan kid stuff” and had moved onto other things, like having a social life. It wasn’t something I was proud of watching. Other 13 year olds didn’t think a show featuring The Repo Man was worth watching.

Then I discovered something that was a little taboo. I’d read about ECW in Pro Wrestling Illustrated and other Apter Mags, so it made my day when I discovered access to the show. For anyone who’s ever uttered “6-7,” there was a time that you’d use an antenna to get channels, and every once in a while, Deion how clear the sky was, you could access TV stations on small networks, sometimes from a distance you’d access a channel from a bigger city. I was delighted to tune in and see Public Enemy in a tag match that went all over the area. Great music being used for entrances, and storylines I would not have wanted my saintly Christian mother to have eavesdropped on.

The ultimate prize there was the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, and my favorite incarnation was the final used on their television and was brought back for the start of the WWECW experiment.the color of purple was different, as was the promotion. The broken letters and barbed wire on the plates of the title helped you know what to expect from this promotion. A violent alternative to corporate wrestling.

I’ll even shout out the oversized ECW title used at the end of the WWE show. It didn’t represent the ECW brand well, but it was still a beautiful title.

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3. NWA World Television

I specifically love this belt with the red strap. It wasn’t all that different from other title belts in its design. In fact, AEW’s National Championship is from the same basic design. There were three things specifically about this title that made me love it.

First, the title itself had a distinct purpose. Talking to the 6/7 people again, but wrestling as a television show was once there for the purpose of hooking you to buy tickets to see the stars live. Those live matches didn’t air anywhere, and were consequential. That is where you saw two stars battle over titles and personal grudges. On television you’d get one star you wanted to see against a Kenny Powers lookalike for under five minutes. But the Television title was made, and now you’d see matches with real stakes on television. The pace was also different, as World Championship matches would often go 30-60 minutes, these matches had ten minute time limits, and forced a challenger to be focused on defeating the opponent quickly or suffer the time limit draw, helping many talent have matches where there was no title change, but wasn’t hurt because they had taken a loss.

Second, I love its design on the side plates. Each of the four plates would have a network logo for ABC, CBS, and NBC, then the other was used to place a satellite dish. It made a simple statement of what they were champion of.

Lastly, it’s the wrestlers who’ve held this belt. Sting held this belt. Dusty wore this title. But for me, when I broke in, there were two men that made this belt the title to watch, Arn Anderson and Stunning Steven Austin. They way they held onto their prize at any means necessary, the way they’d lure their opponent into defeat or draw was brilliance. I even bought a replica to take to an AEW show in hopes I’d run into Double A and be able to ask for an autograph, but sadly he’d left the company a week prior to the event I purchased tickets for. Lord Steven Regal carried this forward with the WCW version of the Television Championship.

2. WWF Winged Eagle

This was a first in my memory to be different with a title design. Most are some sort of circle, oval, or a rounded rectangle. This time, it was an eagle. And the wings came up from the actual belt plate. A classic design that was used by the WWF from the time Andre the Giant used the twin referee to count to three over Hulk Hogan, all through the occupational gimmick era where Bret was the shining star carrying the wrestling, and was retired after Stone Cold Steve Austin won his first WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels. We even had a short reprieve of the design when a broken up and duct taped version of that title was used for the Hardcore Championship.

1. WCW U.S. Championship

I’ve loved every incarnation of this championship from the NWA, to this WCW belt, and the three WWE designs. This specific version though, holds that special spot for me due to my own fandom. In WCW, the TV Title was the workhorse championship, the U.S. Championship was seen as a next in line title. Show you could get over and sell tickets with the smaller belt, to prove you worthy for the main title.

These were main even players – but not ready for, or sometime not built to be – the face of the company. You don’t have to be a “Face-of-the-Company” level wrestler to be important, and why the U.S.  Championship existed, and sometimes still does exist. This title was held by such legends as Sting, Dustin Rhodes, DDP, Booker T, and Raven just to name a few of my favorite champions from my years watching.

I always loved the simple design, with the United States flag in the center. Not gaudy and flashy, but not as plain as the Big Gold World Heavyweight Championship used in NWA, WCW, and WWE at different times.