10 Most Beautiful Belts In Wrestling History
These straps are absolute belters.
Fashion changes faster than a chameleon's scales in a disco. Clothes which were à la mode last week suddenly become old hat the next - quite literally in the case of, well, hats.
It's a constant battle to keep your wardrobe up to date if you gave the vaguest fig about this sort of superficial nonsense - but not if you're a wrestling champion. When it comes to top level titles, it's the back catalogue of yesteryear fans yearn for most, with pretty much every new title unveiled since around 2005 being distinctly 'not as good as the old ones'.
Take the 24/7 Championship for example. Fans were hoping for something akin to the old Hardcore strap. Instead, they got a brass plate on a bit of green leather. Admittedly, it wasn't just nostalgia driving the complaints; the new belt is bloody awful.
AEW managed to get things right at the weekend, displaying their brand new championship which takes more than a little cue from an historic pant-suspender of the past. As a result, it's just about the only truly beautiful belt designed in the past decade. And it just about manages to rank amongst the finest ever.
10. NWA World Heavyweight Championship
The NWA's four kilos of gold might not seem particularly beautiful on first sight. It's all asymmetrical and incongruous, with a random array of flags plonked here and there, a completely superfluous 'WRESTLING' caption for anyone not paying attention, and a pair of jewels which look more like rivets. Rather, it's the 'domed globe's legacy which informs the luxuriousness of a title as historic as it is heavy.
The world's oldest wrestling title (though not, admittedly, the belt itself), the NWA World Heavyweight Championship is indelibly linked with the great and good of wrestling history, an ever-present hallmark of the industry for over a century and one whose imagery has became iconic. The aureate 10 pounder is as much a symbol of 'wrestling' to a generation of '70s and early '80s fans as the 'Winged Eagle' is to early-'90s WWE kids. Even Rob Conway's brief reign hasn't scuppered that.