10 Ugliest championship belts in wrestling history

DISCLAIMER: The belts are ranked according to looks alone, not prestige, titleholders, etc.

To say that fans reacted to the WWE Universal Championship belt unveiling at SummerSlam badly a few years ago, would be an understatement. Even Seth Rollins admonished the Brooklyn audience later via Twitter. The reaction was so venomous that the crowd could be heard chanting about the Universal Championship belt for most of Finn Balor and Seth Rollins’ match at SummerSlam.

This brought into mind all the other extremely ugly championship belts we’ve had in wrestling over the years, so here is a list of the 10 ugliest wrestling belts of all time.

To be fair, with most WWE belts now looking the same, we can lump them in with the Universal Championship.

Will the WWE Universal Championship make the cut?

10: WWE Divas Championship

The Divas Championship belt is one of the most hated belts in recent WWE history

We start this list with the infamous ‘Butterfly belt’. For the eight years that it existed, the WWE Divas Championship has been the most hated championship belt in recent WWE history. Loathed from almost the day it was introduced, the belt has a pink butterfly on the main plate and the word divas written across it.

Even though women like Paige and Nikki Bella have held it, this belt has come to signify an era when WWE didn’t really care about women’s wrestling, repeatedly signing women for their looks instead of ability.

9: ROH Television Championship

This belt looks like it belongs in the museum

The Ring of Honor Television Championship first debuted in 2010, and ROH’s secondary title has since been held by the likes of Sami Zayn, Tommaso Ciampa, Jay Lethal, and Adam Cole. This version of the championship belt was introduced in 2012 and just looks awful.

It looks like a badly done version of the classic 80s belts but just badly done and terribly outdated looking. Apart from that, its weird shape looks even stranger when it’s around a wrestler’s waist.

8: John Cena’s spinning WWE Championship

Who thought that a spinning title belt was a good idea?

Any time that you make a championship belt based on one particular wrestler’s gimmick, it ends up being a problem. In this case, it was an ugly problem, literally.

John Cena’s spinning WWE Championship belt has received a lot of hate from fans over the years and rightfully so. Even though the belt suited Cena’s thug rapper gimmick at the time, the belt looked ridiculous any time another wrestler held it. The spinning part was the part that made this belt ugly, you say? Well, WWE made it stop spinning at a point, and it just looked even more ridiculous then.

7: Edge’s Rated-R World Title

This one was one of the ugliest WWE world title belts of all time

The second spinning title on this list, this belt just proves the weird fascination WWE had with spinning title belts during the Ruthless Aggression Era – another great idea from the Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the same mind that brought us Mae Young giving birth to a hand and the Brawl For All.

This belt was sort of a modified version of Cena’s spinning belt and it had Edge’s Rated-R logo instead of the WWE logo. The belt just looked downright ugly and belts such as this that have a wrestler’s gimmick to them have no credibility whatsoever. I mean, this belt didn’t even have the WWE logo on the main plate.

6: Taz’s FTW Championship in ECW

The FTW belt was the ugliest belt ECW ever produced

Taz introduced the FTW Heavyweight Championship in 1998 when he couldn’t get a shot at the ECW Championship after returning from injury. Taz defended the FTW Heavyweight Championship while billing himself as the "real" World champion. The belt stands in the same league as the Million Dollar Championship as an officially unrecognized title.

The belt was clearly made in haste with Taz taking an old title and going to work at it using some tape and marker. The title just doesn’t look like it has any prestige, something that a wrestler would fight to win.

5: John Cena’s spinning US Title

We can thank Orlando Jordan and JBL for getting rid of this monstrosity

At this point, it isn’t surprising that we have another spinning title belt from the WWE on this list. The look of this belt worked on John Cena and looked foolish on anyone else. Unlike Cena spinning WWE Championship belt, the entire plate of the US Championship was a spinner. The was gaudy and barely even worked for John Cena.

The belt looked like a toy and wasn’t worthy of representing the prestigious United States Championship. If there’s one thing we can thank Orlando Jordan for, it is for tossing this belt in the trash and setting it on fire after winning it from Cena.

4: Lay-Cool Split Women’s Championship

The worst idea regarding a title belt ever?

Whoever had the idea to split the WWE’s Women’s Championship into must have been on mind-bending drugs at the time. This belt went against all logic and common sense. There are very few ways a title can be as devalued as when it gets split in half and held by two wrestlers at the same time. Even though Chyna and Jericho held the Intercontinental Championship at the same time, they didn’t split the damn belt in half!

The Women’s Championship got split in half when Michelle McCool and Layla were a team back in the day and decided to share the belt. There was no explanation as to why the belt had to be chopped in half, other than both of them wanting to sling half a belt from their shoulders. Ridiculous.

3: WWF Heavyweight Championship (1978 – 1985)

This belt was a big, green pile of ugliness

The WWF Heavyweight Championship of the late ’70s and early ’80s is quite possibly one of the ugliest championship belts that the WWE has ever produced. Famously known as the “big green” belt that Bob Backlund held.

The main title plate of this isn’t as big a problem a problem as the huge green leather strap and the side plates on it. The side plates had way too much information about the former champions and just made the belt bulkier and uglier than it needed to be.

2: Tommy Dreamer’s New York Hardcore Title

A unique, but an absolutely terrible idea for a title belt

If not anything else, this title belt is one of a kind. I’m not aware of any other title belts in wrestling that are modeled after a license plate. Even though this title lasted for the blink of an eye, there’s still footage of Dreamer with the belt, which makes it eligible for this list.

The design is your basic rework of a New York license plate, which in itself a terrible idea in itself because license plates have no place on any sort of title belts. Not only that, but the license plate title on the New York Hardcore Title was also cracked like the original hardcore belt, which did not do any aesthetic favors to it. This is definitely one of the most ludicrous wrestling title belts of all time.

1: Jeff Hardy’s TNA Immortal World Championship title belt

The ugliest title belt of all time, no arguments here.

I won’t waste my time talking about this one. Just look at it, it’s a monstrosity. When TNA fans ask why a large section of wrestling fans consider them a joke, it’s because of crazy stuff like this. The main plate basically looks like a drawing by Jeff Hardy of himself.

TNA may have though the design of this belt was space-age, but in reality, it was garbage.