The Top 10: Ugliest Championships

[Jack-Hammer]

Over the weekend, WWE.com had an article up in which the staff listed what they felt were "The 10 Most Beautiful Titles in Sports Entertainment", which led to a thread being created in the WWE section discussing it. For a while, I've thought about doing this thread and I figured the timing's right.

10. AWA World Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/tawa.htm

This is the design the American Wrestling Association began using in the mid to late 80s. Compared to the World Championship designs being used by Mid-Atlantic/WCW, WWF, WCWA and New Japan, I thought this belt looked a little too old school. The center plate design looks like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and the side plates just seem downright bland and generic.

9. NWA National Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/National072209.htm

This design was originally used in Georgia Championship Wrestling in the early 80s to represent the National Heavyweight Championship after the NWA Georgia Heavyweight Championship was retired. The concept for the title with the red, white & blue theme on the leather is the only thing that isn't a huge eyesore to me. The center plate MIGHT have worked had it a different shape, but the side plates are awful. The flag side plates look like something a 2nd grader did for an arts & crafts project and the other two plates, I guess they're medallions or something, look like the bottoms of a couple of Vienna Sausage cans stuck to the leather. Overall, it's just one big eyesore.

8. NWA American Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/70American053111.htm

This design was the one that was used throughout most of the 1970s for the NWA American Heavyweight Championship, or WCCW American Heavyweight Championship as some refer to it. As with a few other titles on my list, this one looks like something that was made in somebody's garage over the weekend using pieces of polished up scrap metal. The center plate also has that jigsaw puzzle piece look about it that just, in my opinion, doesn't work.

7. NXT Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/NXT080912.htm

Surprisingly, I haven't heard a ton of hate on this title design. It's unique, I give it that, but unique doesn't necessarily mean good. The center plate kind of reminds me of the big X on top of the X-Box and the 6 side plates are just the WWE logo. Some degree of effort seemed to be made to go for a different look for the center, but the side plates are generic and it looks as though the only reason they have so many of them is to somehow try to balance out the center plate.

6. CWA World Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/AustinIdolCWA081312.htm

This design was used to represent the title used by Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis. It was short lived, it lasted roughly 2 years and the quirky design might work for some, but not me. Everything about it screams generic and cheap. If you were to fold the straps back, revealing just the center plate, it'd look like you're carrying a case of beer.

5. TNA X Division Championship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNA_X_...ewer/File:New_TNA_X_Division_Championship.jpg

This was the design TNA adopted a little over a year ago for the X Division Championship and it's a major step down from the previous design. It looks as if they tried to combine the center plates of the NXT Championship and the Intercontinental Championship design WWE used during the 2000s. Rather than elegant, the whole thing looks kinda clunky and it just doesn't mesh well together whatsoever.

4. NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/MidAtlantic040713.htm

This design was used in Jim Crockett Promotions, not entirely sure when, but I think it was in the late 70s through the early 80s. It doesn't look like a championship belt so much as some piece of folk art you'd hang on your wall. Depending on how the light hits the plates, they look like they're made out of painted wood or plastic.

3. WWE Championship - Spinner Design

http://www.ajsbelts.com/images/wwecenaadultspinnerlong.jpg

Yep, probably the single most hated title design in pro wrestling history. It stayed around for 8 years and, initially, it suited John Cena's character as something of a thug rapper. As Cena's character moved from that into what was essentially an updated version of Hulk Hogan, the title stayed around and the hate grew exponentially. At least the title fit a purpose when Cena was the "Doctor of Thuganomics" in that it was a gaudy piece of bling you'd see rappers sporting. Still, it was just flat out ugly as hell, there's no way to get around it. The spinner feature was kinda cool, at first, but it eventually made the title look more like a toy than a championship.

2. WWE Hardcore Championship & Jeff Hardy's "Immortal" TNA World Heavyweight Championship

http://media.photobucket.com/user/My_Diary_EWR/media/Belts/WWF_Hardcore.jpg.html?filters[term]=wwe hardcore championship&filters[primary]=images&filters[secondary]=videos&sort=1&o=22

http://www.sescoops.com/detailed-look-at-jeff-hardys-immortal-championship/

I couldn't decide which was worse: a garbage championship or...well...a more colorful garbage championship. The WWE Hardcore Championship was a destroyed replica of the "Winged Eagle" design of the WWF Championship and...well it speaks for itself. Jeff Hardy's custom title when part of Immortal looks like something that Barney the Dinosaur gave birth to after being raped by one of the Transformers. I couldn't decide which was uglier, so I had them tie for #2.

1. NWA United States Heavyweight Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/CastUS-081510.htm

For me, this has to be the worst of the worst. This is the original design used to represent Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling's territorial version of the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship in 1975. There's absolutely no cohesion or symmetry to this belt whatsoever. As with a few others, this looks like something someone put together in their garage. Hell, even the word "heavyweight" is misspelled on the center plate. The WWE Hardcore Championship looked like crap but at least it was purposely designed to look like a piece of crap. Somebody actually thought this think looked good!!!!

 

[OYDK]

For me the ugliest title has to be the Spinner Belt... I hated that thing when John Cena unveiled it and I honestly could not believe they used that belt for nearly a decade. It looked like a child's play toy for Christ's sake...

Also it kind of seemed like a slap in the face that everybody had to hold that title when it was basically created specifically for John Cena.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Surprised I don't see the WWE Diva's Championship belt on this list. Though it's practically an assumed "honorable mention" since you have Jeff Hardy's Immortal championship on there. Of course, it's also quite possible you forgot it existed.

EDIT: Speaking of Diva's, the split Women's Championship that LayCool had should be mentioned for sheer outrageousness.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I’m a pretty firm believer that all Championship Title Belts are beautiful, however there are 2 exceptions to this rule in my book, thus there are only 2 Belts on my “Ugliest Championship Title Belts” list.

2 – nWo Championship

The Big Gold Belt is number 2 on my all – time favorite list. When someone desecrates my second favorite Belt of all time, regardless of how awesome the storyline was or how sweet Hollywood Hulk Hogan looked with it, it still grinds my gears that they did this to the World Title Belt.

1 – WWE Hardcore Championship

The Winged Eagle isn’t even on my Top 12 (13 now with the Big W added) list, but it is the first World Title I ever saw and in my mind it is the first “richest prize in this industry”. Smashing it up wasn’t a big deal to me, as I thought they would either have a newly designed WWE Belt or a new Winged Eagle. What got on my nerves is when they taped it up and wrote “Hardcore” on it, and sanctioned it as a WWE Championship. If I’m so mad about nWo Championship Title Belt, then you can imagine how I feel about the broken Winged Eagle.

These are cases where I liked what the Belts were for, but I didn’t like how the Belts looked…at all.

 

[Wolf Pac]

I honestly like the Spinner belt and I don't think it's ugly looking at all. The belt looked fine wrapped around the waist or shoulder of superstars like John Cena, Edge, Randy Orton, Batista, Triple H etc. And they stopped the "W" spinning sometime around in the late 00's. The title is much better looking than today's version and I doubt it would get so much of the hate it gets if it weren't assosciated with public enemy #1, John Cena. I'd rather look at a nice gold piece of bling like the Spinner belt than that piece of shit looking class ring we have today and I've even seen those same people that hated the Spinner, say the same thing after they unveiled the new WWE Title. I really hope the WWE don't get rid of the Big Gold Belt because the Class Ring alone looks absolutely awful on whoever's carrying it. I remember when The Rock put the new belt on his shoulder for the first time and thinking it was a massive step down from when he carried around that amazing looking Globe belt in 1999-2001.

If it were me, I'd replace the Spinner belt on that list either with the Class Ring or the Pennies aka the current WWE Tag Team Titles.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

Jeff Hardy's Immortal WHC title is an easy #1 pick for me. A truly hideous design, and it's almost impossible to ignore the similarities to the Divas Championship, when you look at the style and the color scheme. When I think of Hardy's Immortal design, I don't think of something that's supposed to represent a world champion or the top guy in a pro wrestling company.

Also, I get the whole point of Edge mocking Cena with the design, but Edge's Rated-R Superstar spinner logo WWE Championship belt looked like a cheap second rate version of the WWE spinner logo.

 

[Radical]

WWE has royally SUCKED at making good looking championship belts in the last 5 - 10 years.

In the 90s they had the nicest looking Championship belts from the World Tag Team, to Intercontinental to WWE (Winged Eagle) Title.

Now, their titles are pretty horrible and, what's worse, they don't seem to care! They take FOREVER to introduce new ones. Which doesn't make any sense. If they introduce a new one that's MORE money they are going to make from people buying the belt in their store, especially if it's a nice one.

So WWE basically has 4 of the top 10 ugliest Championship belts:

4.) Divas Championship - Too big. It's bigger than the US title and that's for the big boys.

3.) Tag Team Titles - The spartan helmet, big bronze penny titles are a joke. It's funny, often the commentators will talk about the tag team title holders and say "They've got the gold" ... but they don't! They got the bronze garbage titles.

Tag Team titles DESPERATELY need to be changed to something more like they had in the 90s or even the World Tag Team titles of the 2000s.

2.) WWE Title - The new one is still pretty garbage. With those huge diamonds it still looks like something John Cena pimped out for his car rims or something. The World Heavyweight Championship is the best looking one of the major titles.

But, on a related note, it's freakin' annoying seeing the Champion holding BOTH belts. I thought the damn thing was unified. So unify it for goodness sake and make ONE belt that represents both.

1.) WWE Championship (Spinner) - It was OK when Cena held it and pimped it out for his tastes because we've seen it before with Rock and Stone Cold but what was utterly ridiculous was that they KEPT the damn thing looking that way after Cena lost it. They never did that with Rock or Stone Cold's variations but they did for Cena's spinner belt and they did it for nearly 10 years. CRAZY.

 

[DirtyJosé]

I never hated the Spinner Belt. It was fine for its era, and as was mentioned above, I don't believe it would be as universally hated as it was were it not for its association with John Cena specifically and "rap/hip-hop culture" in general. The spinning aspect of it seemed like it was dropped relatively quick into its lifespan anyway. The only part of the belt that I do loathe is the word "Champ", but I feel it's a minor gripe.

Ugliest belt vote from me? Hard to argue against Jeff's custom title, but I'll go where no one else wants to I suppose.

UNDISPUTED CHAMPIONSHIP: Oh baby, for such a build-up, I was terribly disappointed in this belt. It doesn't pop. It doesn't stick out. It's bland, one-dimensional, and uninspired, much like the era of WWE that it represents.

SMOKIN' SKULL BELT: Fuck this thing. For real. You want to knock Cena's belt for being tacky? This thing is absolutely hideous and looks like it was designed by a stoned 13 year old in school doodling when he should have been paying attention. Fucking atrocious belt.

 

[nightmare]

7. NXT Championship

http://www.davemillicanbelts.com/NXT080912.htm

Surprisingly, I haven't heard a ton of hate on this title design. It's unique, I give it that, but unique doesn't necessarily mean good. The center plate kind of reminds me of the big X on top of the X-Box and the 6 side plates are just the WWE logo. Some degree of effort seemed to be made to go for a different look for the center, but the side plates are generic and it looks as though the only reason they have so many of them is to somehow try to balance out the center plate.

I think that if they evened out the size of the N & T on the belt it would look much better. The X design shape for the center plate would seem more balanced instead of dwarfing the other letters so much. They could change up the repeating side plates a bit, but the center plate is what needs that small tweak & would be an improvement without having to overhaul the whole thing. I like the idea of it not being a traditional center plate, but that size difference in the letters has always bugged me.

 

[Reflection]

Jeff Hardy's custom TNA World Championship is definitely the worst-looking title from the 21st century. The face drawn on that title looks like drunk Jeff Hardy in that Victory Road match against Sting. lol

Apart from that, I also disliked John Cena's customized United States Championship. The Spinner WWE Championship still looked like gold and diamonds, something with a massive scrap value, but this is what really looked like a toy:
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5062/5632997911_fa1f6fd523_b.jpg

I also dislike the look of the Million Dollar Championship (both the metal strap and the leather strap versions); I feel whoever made it did a poor job and could have done a better job at it, like making the dollar signs more prominent by making crevices/holes in them.
http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/42939.gif

Other than the above three, I generally hate the look of any title which has small plates placed upon a huge leather belt (mostly seen in old days titles)... They just seem less beautiful, valuable, or collectible.

 

[Bobbywoodhogan]

I hated the redesign of the WWF World Title in 1998, it just looked I'd shaped and the winged eagle design it replaced was by far the best WWE title of all-time.

Also in 1998 the redesign of the Intercontinental title was a massive downgrade from the classic IC to take design. The oval shape was a strange choice indeed.

Agreed with the spinner belt listed at the top aswell, just looks like a toy. The new version of the Undisputed WWE title us awful aswell, looks like a five year old designed it. The big good belt should be the main title, it looks different to all the over titles making it stand out.

 

[Catacomb]

i never liked the spinner wwe title, dont like the current tag titles but i really disliked the revamped ecw title

the original ecw title was classic but the new version was horrid. ecw gets my vote as one of the worst, but there were some pretty bad titles on the op's list

 

[Dagger Dias]

The ugliest Championship of all time was Jeff Hardy's "Immortal" TNA World Heavyweight Championship. It is by far the ugliest Championship that I have ever seen. I've liked most of the belt designs that I've seen over the years and rarely find anything negative to say about any, but good grief Jeff Hardy's "Immortal" TNA World Heavyweight Championship was so stupid and ugly. It didn't look like anything that a World Championship tier wrestler would proudly wear, the thing was an absolute joke. People complain about how the 2005-2013 design of the WWE Championship looked too much like a toy, THIS is the belt design that looked like a toy. Ugly is an understatement. A distant 2nd place for me is the Undisputed Championship in WWE. That thing had such a boring and generic design, I can't understand why people liked it.

 

[Alex]

People forget that Jeff Hardy's Immortal title was for him and him alone. Weird artistic guy has weird artistic belt. It worked for him. Yeah it looked stupid when Mr Anderson and Sting were holding it but on Jeff Hardy it looked good. Then again I like artistic things like that so that's probabaly why I give it a pass.

As to ugly championships I'm pretty lax. I think most belts have a good overall design that maybe with at weak could work e.g. making the tag titles gold would work because the design itself is really good or adding more colour to the final ECW title

Having said that the new X-Divsion title looks convuluted. The previous designs had a red X on a gold plate making the X stand out and showed that it was the X-Division title. The new one is gold all over with X's inside each other. That would work if the X was in any way prominent. The black and blue X's blend into the gold whereas the red X would stand out. It's just a bad design when the previous design worked tremendously

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

My GOD, there are some horrific looking title belts on JackHammer's list- seriously, how did some of those ever get made for use?? Disgusting.

The 2 worst on that list of 10 are:

The NWA National Heavyweight Championship (no.9 on the list), with its awful red/white/blue colour scheme and a centre plate that looked like something a child drew.


The NWA US Heavyweight Championship (no1 on the list)- I'd don't even know what it looks like but it sure as hell don't look like a wrestling belt!

Also, the WWE Divas Title the Spinning WWE Title and the current WWE Tag Team Titles (that look like giant pennies), would be top picks too. The Tag Titles are the worse in the business right now. The new WWE title looks shit too.

 

[Bagpipes]

Cena's Spinner Belt was awful. Looked like something your could win at a 3 chances for $5 game at your local county fair. The ultimate gimmick championship that should have remained on a drawing board.

 

[Trill Co$by]

I never hated the Spinner WWE Championship. I was fine. Sure when it spun it fit Cena most, but it still worked. Jeff Hardy winning the Spinner Belt looked cool. HHH holding the spinner belt looked cool. Randy's dominance with the spinner belt circa WM 24 looked cool. I never really had a bad taste for it. Honestly, since the 90s, I haven't had much bad things to say about WWE titles... even the current title has grown on me. That being said, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship is by far the worst looking title ever. It just didn't work for me. It was a silly upside down house show that just looked terrible... Swing and a miss on WWE's part there.

Also, I can't say that I'm too fond of the current ROH Television title either. While I love the look of the ROH World title and even Jay Briscoe's world title, I don't think the company's TV title gives the company any good tastes.

And finally, even though it's not wrestling I must say that UFC titles have bothered me since the beginning. Every single one of them are the exact same design, and it would be hard for new MMA fans to differentiate them from each other. At least in pro-wrestling, fans can know the difference.

Oh, and while we're talking about Jeff Hardy's title, I didn't like the original design. But once it got updated and colored, I liked it a lot more. Also, it was a great compliment to the Hurricane title.

http://topropebelts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GSH-1-1868x877.jpg

Personal preferences I guess.

 

[HeroForHire]

The Diva's title has to be on here. That is the worst belt I have ever seen. Just a terrible design, and the colors really annoy me.

 

[Black Anaconda Vise]

It's not necessarily ugly, but John Cena's US Title Belt (with the round plates) just didn't work for me. I guess it worked for his character but all the bling made it look like a toy rather than a prestigious title.

 

[Dirk]

It's probably because I'm a mark for that loony, but I think that while Jeff's Immortal WHC Belt looks bad, it fits him perfectly. If you want to create a custom belt, you go all out. If it resembles the Diva's belt, it's because Jeff's girly side was played up during his time as a heel.

Same with the Spinner belt - it suited Homeboy when he held it.

Like commentary, the look of the belts is something I think we shouldn't nitpick too much over, since it's really not that important. If I had to pick one, though...

2 – nWo Championship

The Big Gold Belt is number 2 on my all – time favorite list. When someone desecrates my second favorite Belt of all time, regardless of how awesome the storyline was or how sweet Hollywood Hulk Hogan looked with it, it still grinds my gears that they did this to the World Title Belt.

I don't mind the Hardcore belt as much, since it's a secondary title, but considering how beautiful that Big Gold Belt is AND how it was vandalized... That's not nice.

Maybe I would feel different if Hogan replaced it with a custom nWo belt, but I think the same reasoning why even a heel champ never kicks the belt applies here.

 

[tvcolosi]

the original Block logoed Purle IC Belt in 1998, it was small, ugly and was introduced the same day as the Attitude scratch logo so outdated at its debut.

 

[Planet_Velvet]

Pro wrestling has had it's share of ugly championships. My pick has to be the atrocity that was WCW's Hardcore championship. It looked a sickening mess. There are indy championships that looked better than it. The belt was true reflection of the division, though.

 

[rmp0012002]

I actually liked the early 80's National belt and it also looked great as the tag belts on the Road Warriors. It was different. The red U.S. Belt Flair wore was the same design as the Sheiks belt in Detroit.
Dibiase's belt was probably the worst. First seeing the NWA big gold belt it was ugly compared to the previous NWA belt. The cool thing about the original Big Gold belt is that Vince doesn't own it.

 

[Vader]

The revamped ECW title looked awful. As did the WCW hardcore belt.

The two belts that bothered me the most were the Smoking Skull and Spinner Belts. Those two were too tied to the gimmicks of the guys holding them.

 

[HBKistheHOF]

10.) WWE Tag Team Championships - Having some solid teams hold the belts recently instead of garbage like McGillicutty & Otunga or The Corre has really helped improve the overall value of the titles but they're still just big copper pennies.
9.) Divas Championship - This is another design that has actually grown on me over time once decent competitors like AJ & Paige were holding the belt but in the end it will always just look like a giant tramp stamp to me.
8.) TNA X Division Championship - Both the original NWA X Division Title & the current design are just awful, why didn't TNA stick with the one that they had in between that? It was probably their 2nd best title design of all time.
7.) SCSA's Smoking Skull Championship/The Rock's Brahma Bull Championship - Even though Rocky's belt never made it to TV, these were both some of the goofiest designs I've seen & made me actually dislike the world title for a little while in the 90's. It made the world title look cheap & start to feel like a pointless gimmick belt.
6.) NWA World Heavyweight Championship - I just really hate the shape of the center plate & the random globe half sticking out of the belt when nothing else does.
5.) Jeff Hardy's "Immortal" Championship - The belt looks like TNA had a contest for saddest emo kid drawing & Jeff won.
4.) Austin Idol's CWA World Heavyweight Championship - It's hip to be square.
3.) NWA National Heavyweight Championship - A less ghetto prelude to the next horrendous title belt but this one was still pretty tacky.
2.) John Cena's U.S. Championship - As some have actually pointed out in this thread the WWE Title "Spinner" belt really wasn't bad at all, especially once it stopped spinning. But this ever spinning monstrosity is the real culprit! Not only was it an even bigger spinner that actually looked like a gangsta chain that Flavor Flav or someone would wear but it was overall MUCH uglier & worst was that it was supposed to be representing the United States of America.
1.) Tommy Dreamer's Hardcore Championship - Where do I even start? Take the ugly shape of the NWA belts, the pure tackiness of Cena's belt, the hideousness of just about every other belt on the list, sprinkle it with a dash of cheesiness from the Divas belt just cause Tommy's the "pretty boy" & wrap it in barbed wire... there you have Dreamer's Hardcore Title.