All good things might not always come to an end in a permanent way in wrestling, but from time to time things go away for a while. The good and bad side of WWE Finally having just one World Champion was the fact that the “Big Gold Belt” aka World Heavyweight Title was bound to go away. After the World title and WWE title were unified at TLC last December the now “WWE World Heavyweight Title” was represented by the champion holding both belts. That ended the night of SummerSlam on August 17th when Brock Lesnar beat John Cena and had a new title introduced the next night on RAW. The new title was a revamped WWE Title. The World title seems to be retired.
I was a WWF guy growing up. I was probably an ECW guy as a teen, but I still rooted for WWF over WCW. Still, while the WWF Title more times than not switched its design, over in the NWA/WCW the Big Gold Belt was the standard unless given a good reason. As a matter of fact most people would have probably had issue with the Big Gold Belt taking the place of the traditional NWA World Title had it not looked so awesome. The story goes, Nelson Royal, had originally ordered the belt in late 1985 or 1986, on behalf of the NWA. The original concept artwork for the belt had the NWA letters featured prominently at the top. Once word go out on the price of the belt, the NWA decided not to purchase it. Nelson purchased it with no letters or logos and intended to use it for himself. Once Jim Crockett Jr. saw the completed belt, he dug it and bought it from Nelson.
The title in the original run would be held by Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Ronnie Garvin, Ricky Steamboat and Sting until something happened that caused only the first can of worms in the world title history to be opened.
People who wore the title had to put down a deposit for the title. Ric Flair was the NWA/WCW World Champion when he ended up leaving WCW for WWF. In 1991 Flair showed up on WWF TV with the World Heavyweight Title claiming to be the “real” world’s champion and since they apparently owed him money he had the title. Oddly enough WCW had stopped recognizing him as champion before the NWA did causing one of the early splits in the World Title history. Flair did indeed have the Big Gold Belt when he came to TV, but after a lawsuit the WWF had another version of the same title made.
Pretty soon after the title would stop being used on WWF TV and returned to WCW where they started having two world champions. The WCW World Champion that used a new belt and an International World Champion that used the Big Gold Belt. Oddly enough, this would stand until Flair returned to WCW and unified both by beating Sting. WCW would then start once again using the Big Gold Belt.
This would continue well into WWF buying WCW as the title would then once again be re-named simply the World Heavyweight Championship until it was unified with the WWF Title by Chris Jericho. He too would carry both titles around until Triple H was awarded the new Undisputed Championship after beating Jericho at WrestleMania 18, a new title made that retired both the WWF Title and World Heavyweight Title. On May 6th while Hulk Hogan was WWF Undisputed Champion the company was re-named WWE. This really has nothing to do with the Big Gold Belt, but I figured we’d point that out regardless.
On September 2nd 2002 the Big Gold Belt was once again brought back to life as the World Heavyweight title for the RAW brand when Brock Lesnar refused to wrestle for RAW. This would split the WWE title and World Heavyweight titles once again, however, this time the WWE simply states that a new title history starts with the break and while they used the Big Gold Belt, it wasn’t using the NWA/WCW history of it. They’d often go back and forth on this, even using NWA and WCW matches for their History of the World Heavyweight Title DVD. Regardless of the history, it was still cool seeing Big Gold back on TV and in use. Not long after being brought back another mold of the belt was made and used on TV with the WWE logo on it.
One could say that for a time the World Heavyweight Title was treated as even superior to the WWE Title, seeing as how the World Title was on RAW and the WWE Title was on Smackdown. Soon after a brand draft sent WWE Champion John Cena to RAW and World Champion Batista to Smackdown in 2005, the World Title would often play second fiddle to the WWE Title and it became more and more obvious over the year until the brand split ended and John Cena won the title from Alberto Del Rio in 2013. Soon after the title was unified with Randy Orton being the last recognized World Heavyweight Champion. And, as you already know, to spite this the title was still around at least until August 18th.
Will we ever see the Big Gold Belt again? Who can say. You at least never can be sure in the world of wrestling. The title could once again be split or another brand might be added with a title history started with the title, you just never do know. One thing is for certain and that is the Big Gold Belt might just be the most popular and widely loved wrestling title ever used. Regardless of what it was being used for, people just seemed to love it. The title will never be forgotten that is for sure as several indies use titles that have their looks based on the classic title.
Regardless if it is just “bye for now” or a “see you soon” in the case of the Big Gold Belt, the title will be missed.
