The WWF Hulk Hogan 1984 World Heavyweight Red Strap Wrestling Championship Belt

I’ve been watching professional wrestling since I was a small boy. My folks often narrated to me stories about a time before I could even speak and they say how I fell in love with the sport watching It on cable TV in the early years. One of the breaking stories was me grabbing a cooking spoon and using it as a microphone. I would shout some words and then hold them to my dad’s face in an attempt to copy an interviewer asking questions to a wrestler. Then I would have matches with dolls on my parent's bed, jumping from the top of the drawers onto the bed in my own imagination of the Macho Man’s flying elbow smash. In the late 90s we went from having legitimate wrestling matches in the house to forming our own wrestling matches. Indeed wrestling has played a large part in my childhood development.

The most outstanding aspects of pro wrestling that took me by the storm were the title belts themselves. When a champion would walk down the aisle I was always glued to my TV set to get a glimpse of the belt that I could take in. Remember this was an era before DVR so pausing the screen and having a close glimpse was impossible. If you wanted to absorb as much of the engraving detail as possible you had to stay glued to your TV set and get up close to the screen. My friends and I would watch intently enough that we would discuss the wear and tear that we each would notice the belts taking from week to week. I remember a time in 1999 when the WCW World Heavyweight Championship seemed to be missing some fasteners and the plate would separate from the leather of the belt by an abnormally large margin creating a very noticeable gap. I guess we were really geeks to notice this kind of stuff.

Indeed having watched wrestling for so long I’ve seen a number of designs come and go through the years. Over time several belts have remained in my consciousness and become my personal favorites. One of my favorites will now be presented in this post as my Top Wrestling Championship Belts. I will try to withhold any bias I may have based on the preference of promotion or era and give this particular belt the justice it deserves! Ladies and gentlemen without further ado I present to you the WWF Hulk Hogan 1984 World Heavyweight Red Strap Wrestling Championship Belt!

This was an iconic belt only worn for a short period and I do not get why it is mostly overlooked today. Back in 1984 when the mighty Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik he held up the iconic big green strapped belt after this particular match he celebrated with it in the locker room. This belt was not a bad one but it was just a sign of the times. It was more like it was fabricated in a trophy shop somewhere in Pennsylvania where WWF recorded their monthly TV tapings. When the CEO Vince McMahon decided to take his promotion to the next level which was national, he quickly realized that he needed a title belt worthy of being considered as the top belt in professional wrestling. And exactly this was the design that began that journey. One thing I find interesting about this WWF Hulk Hogan 1984 World Heavyweight Red Strap Wrestling Championship Belt is that the WWF block logo is not present anywhere. Instead, the letters WWF in plain text are on the top of the belt above the eagle’s head. It’s a nice, respectable-looking championship belt and it ushered in the beginning of the war for the territories. Please get this iconic classic WWF Hulk Hogan 1984 World Heavyweight Red Strap Wrestling Championship Belt here!