I sadly had to spend time with my stupid family, who I did say I was going to abandon to watch the Big Bang, but guilt washed over me like a goblet of Gangrel's blood and here I am pleading you to keep results to yourself. I gotta wait until Tuesday to see it, and let me tell you, staying off of Twitter, wrestling blogs, news sites, ROH's site, EVEN FACEBOOK because I have ROH on there, etc. has been a Mortal Kombat TEST YOUR MIGHT thus far, and it's only been one day. I almost go to these sites just by habit, like some kind of nerdy conditioning I've done to myself. I need shock therapy (I almost called it Shockmaster therapy, but that's a joke that doesn't even come close to making sense).
SO, in order to keep my sanity (because apparently all I do is come on here and think/write/read about wrestling), I've been drooling over the now fully-completed set of ROH's new Championship belts - thanks to Steve for pointing me in this direction (credit to you for this entire post). Take a look and try and tell me you wouldn't want any one of these pinching your love handles (photos are all courtesy of All Star Championship Belts, who made the actual belts):
RING OF HONOR
WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
RING OF HONOR
WORLD TELEVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
RING OF HONOR
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
These belts look like updated old-school NWA belts to me (and other 80's belts), and I mean that in the BEST way I could ever mean. The flags on the World Title are very reminiscent of the NWA World Championship belt, and even the "Hogan '86" WWF World Championship. Current WWE World Title belts do nothing to acknowledge that more than one country makes up the World.
I am a big fan of these new designs. Can't wait to see them up close and in person at an ROH show.
And now, to round out this Championship Belt post, here are some of my favourite pictures of shirtless sweaty dudes holding shiny things (and some of my favourite old school belt designs):
Magnum T.A. with a belt that's almost as wide as it is long. Kinda like his moustache.
Roddy Piper holding the old NWA US Title. This may be the purest, most genuine moment of joy ever photographed. I love this picture.
Dr. Death and Terry Gordy holding both the NWA and WCW Tag Team Titles. Epic.
Brian Pillman holding the WCW Light Heavyweight Title before it was replaced by the Cruiserweight belt. The colours in this entire picture are awesome.
Owen Hart holding the USWA Unified World Title. The belt is such a strange shape and colour, but I like it and this picture.
This is just a hilarious picture.
All of these photos (minus the Magnum T.A. one) are from Reggie Parks' Championship Belts, who is responsible for every truly classic championship belt design. He also makes some awesome customs, which you can check out here. But it's more fun to show the most bizarre pictures I could find on there. Like these (click the picture if you can't read the belt):
I appreciate the positive comments you made about the new and (IMO) improved Ring of Honor championship belts. As 1/2 owner and designer for All Star Championship Belts, I've been coming across a lot of negativity about ROH's new belts (mostly of the variety of "how dare they change belts after so many years" or "they should never replace their belts because they look like the UWF ones" instead of good reasons) that have nothing to do about what the new belts are, it's all about what the new belts aren't. I'm not Reggie Parks, and in all due respect to "The King of Belts" I'm not trying to be Reggie Parks except in one respect...I want to create the best championship belts on the planet just as Reggie did for so many years. If the haters can't appreciate that, then that's their loss.
ReplyDeleteBTW, love your blog. A lot of common sense exhibited here without a lot of undue negativity. Keep up the good work.
Neal Snow
Whoa! Thanks man, you have no idea how much I appreciate that comment. The entire reason why I started this blog was because it was so hard to find a pro wrestling blog that wasn't just shitting on everything all the time. Sometimes I worry that I get too negative and have become the very thing I hate, but I'm glad you posted that, because clearly it hits home for me in a good way.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, enough gushing about my stupid self.
Dude, I love your belts. The TV Title in particular is one of the most unique and cool looking belts I've ever seen and it suits ROH perfectly.
And as for the haters, I think the people that are hating the new belts are the same dudes who are hating ROH in general - people who have been watching since 2002 and love to keep Ring of Honor tucked away in their back pocket like it's their own personal special little thing. And when something changes (Adam Pearce, new belts, countouts introduced) they feel like they're entitled to complain about it AND be justified in it because they've been following ROH since the start.
Sometimes I think Indy wrestling fans are just looking for shit to complain about. So screw the haters, your belts rule.
Mitch
Have you ever seen www.Wildcatbelts.com?
ReplyDelete