13 Wrestling Matches That Cost Wrestlers Their Custom Belts

2. Daniel Bryan’s Eco-Friendly WWE Championship

Gold Ic Goldust Ahmed Johnson
WWE.com

Daniel Bryan won his fourth WWE Championship on SmackDown (13 November 2018) defeating AJ Styles, with a kick to the crotch and a running knee. ‘The New’ Daniel Bryan attacked the “fickle” fans and declared the Yes! Movement dead.

On SmackDown (29 January 2019), Bryan took the mantle of ‘The Planet’s Champion’. He branded the WWE Championship belt “a symbol of excess”, “gaudy”, and “bound to the skin of a cow whose life was taken from her”. Bryan threw the standard tile into a trashcan, and presented his custom eco-friendly championship made from “100% sustainable, organic hemp” and “carved from a naturally fallen oak”. The eco-friendly championship was the perfect visual prop for Bryan’s nuanced heel turn. He was obnoxious and aggressive, but also on the right side of environmental ethics.

Kofi Kingston (with Big E and Xavier Woods) vs. Daniel Bryan (c) (with Rowan)

WrestleMania 35

The KofiMania build-up to the match, mirrored Bryan’s own Road to WrestleMania five years previously. Kingston endured both a running knee and the LeBell Lock before putting Bryan down with a Trouble in Paradise. After the match, Big E threw the eco-friendly custom aside and presented his New Day brother with the classic championship, the real “symbol of excellence”.

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An English Lit. MA Grad trying to validate my student debt by writing literary fiction and alternative non-fiction.