Big Gold Belt

[laughs] You have, you always had the WWE Championship, the title that Bruno Sammartino held, that Hulk Hogan held, that Austin, uh, Michaels and Hart and, and s- it was always in the WWE Championship.

And then they of course had the Big Gold Belt, which they, you know, when they, when they got, when they bought WCW, they had the World Heavyweight Championship.

And then somewhere along the way they had that, and then they did a few times they tried to merge and, and unify the titles, and they said, "Oh, we're only gonna have one world champion." But then they get tired of that 'cause they realize, well, you can't have a world champion then on every single show, or we can't have a world champion then on every single house show loop.

So then in 2015 they created the Universal [laughs] Title.

Skewered says, as a kid, I didn't like this belt at all.

Antoine, the original big gold belt is always and forever classic.

It's the title that defined my childhood with Ron Simmons and Booker T.

Will always hold a place in my heart for what it means.

Yeah, I'm not surprised that they misspelled your name.

I mean, as a reminder, they actually misspelled Ric Flair's name when they made the Big Gold Belt way back in 1986.

It said R-I-C-K.

No way.

Favorable field for Ryback, yeah.

I think if they had put him in the big gold belt scene around that time, then it probably would have been a better situation.

By his accounts he was selling more merch than I think even Cena at the ti- at his, at his peak, which, let's be honest, was not a very long period of time.

No, no.

But-

It was basically, like, the first, I don't know, few months of or the middle of 2013, basically.

But imagine him, you know, one of the guys that had the big gold belt around that time was Big Show.

Yeah.

An NWA board had to be reconstituted as most members had gone out of business or had been bought by Jim Crockett Promotion slash WCW.

Ric Flair displayed the big gold belt on WWF television, calling himself the real world's heavyweight champion.

A lot to unpack, Travis.

Jim Hurd sets this whole thing into motion.

Yeah.

I mean, they did respect the title, essentially.

Still, the big gold is one of the top five world titles of all time.

Absolutely.