10 MORE Strange Things WWE Champions Did With The Belt
Crazy customisations, cracking them open with hammers and carrying them to other companies...
Vince McMahon might think titles become props when people call them belts, but this is yet again a case of the auteur of awkward alliteration getting submerged by silly semantics.
In his mind, the messaging is entirely related to what we as fans are told, rather than shown. Obsessed with making things as easy as possible for toddlers and fellow early boomers alike, he's forgotten about the ginormous audience in between that doesn't quite need a hand to hold through every step of a stilted story.
Belts become props not because they get confused as things that hold trousers up, but because the men and women holding that are badly booked expose the the silverware as a narrative contrivance rather than any wrestler's richest prize.
When they're that, they're everything, making it all the stranger (for better and worse) when wrestlers don't exactly act as expected with them...
(NOTE: Yes, this we've been cute with the parameters here just so we can present this as a sequel to the original. Here's the compromise - all of the people featured have been Champions in WWE at some point, even if it wasn't/isn't that specific strap involved...)
10. Hulk Hogan Buries It In Another Country
There was once a time where putting the WWE Championship on Hulk Hogan made all the sense in the world.
Five very specific times, in fact. Hogan's first four reigns and his earnestly sweet (and thankfully short) nostalgia run in 2002 all spoke to the frenzied popularity of wrestling's biggest star.
His 1993 victory at WrestleMania IX spoke only to Vince McMahon's panic.
McMahon thought he'd found the magic again as the 'Show Of Shows' went off the air with 'The Hulkster' squashing Yokozuna seconds after the sumo star had cheaply defeated Bret Hart, but the Chairman confused it with a mere illusion akin to the double Doink phenomenon earlier in the show.
Over in Japan where he thought he wouldn't be seen nor heard, Hogan called the belt "a toy" and "a trinket" during a NJPW press conference to leverage a future there instead. His arrogance-laden tour de force literally knew no bounds, but McMahon saw sense enough to make a clean break shortly afterwards.