Redneck Taz's The Strap #1 Page 2

The history of the use of belts to designate a champion goes back many years.  In several different cultures, sashes or cloth belts were used to designate prowess in contests or sports, or military rank.  One of the earliest references to a belt being used as a sports trophy was in England in the late 1800’s when the English Boxing Champion was presented with a leather belt lined with silver lion’s teeth to celebrate his championship.  In the United States, championship belts were used at the turn of the century for boxing titles, including the Police Gazette World Heavyweight Title and the famous belt presented to John L. Sullivan at the end of the bare-knuckles era.  It was during this same time that professional wrestling became a prominent sport in the United States with Gotch and Hackenschmidt becoming major celebrities and the American “Catch as Catch Can” style becoming more and more popular.  During the time that professional wrestlers began to adopt the boxing-style ring as their “mat”, they also began using belts (which were usually a cloth ribbon with a gold or silver center plate) as their titles. 

During the 1940’s, most of professional wrestling’s promoters in the United States formed an alliance to protect their business from anti-trust laws.  After the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance, the alliance named mid-westerner Orville Brown as their first champion in October of 1948.  However, Brown was severely injured in an automobile accident and the alliance recognized the top challenger to Brown as the new champion, a young man by the name of Lou Thesz.  Thesz had won the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight title in July of 1948 and, after being named National Wrestling Alliance World Champion, he began to consolidate other titles into the NWA title.  The belt that Thesz held during this time was, ironically, not a “strap” at all, but made of metal.  However, that belt represented the “undisputed” World title for several years.  In the following years, however, some promoters broke away from the NWA, most notably the group that would become the American Wrestling Association (AWA) with Verne Gagne as their champion, and the World-Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF).  While Thesz, Gagne and Sammartino all claimed the “World” title, the promotions relied on the image of the title belts to reinforce to their fans that their man was the champion.  Years later, it is still hard to find a photo of any of these three men without some championship belt. 

In the early 1960’s, a wrestler decided to try his hand at designing and creating his own championship belts using his own design.  Belts up to this point had taken many different shapes, some quite simple (a metal plate with a leather strap).  However, “The Quiet Superman” Reggie Parks designed a belt with a large central plate and four side plates on a leather strap that snapped in the rear.  His first belt was a set of Midwest Tag Team titles that he and Doug Gilbert held.  Not long after that he made a belt that came to be known as “The Stepping Stone to the World Title” and “The Kiel Title”.  That belt was the Missouri State Heavyweight Championship and it was proudly worn by some of the greatest talent in the business and defended in the legendary Kiel Arena in St. Louis.  After his retirement, Parks became the recognized “King of Belts” and has designed and created belts for promotions around the world.  His most famous design was the WWF Championship belt used by Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair and Randy Savage.