Championship belt

File:Wikibelt.jpg

A Championship Belt is used primarily in combat sports such as boxing, mixed martial arts and professional wrestling to signify the champions of the promotion or company, much like the Vince Lombardi Trophy or The Stanley Cup.

Boxing

In boxing, the individual organizations such as the World Boxing Council, The World Boxing Association, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Organization each have their own unique championship belt that are awarded to the champions of each weight class. Boxers, especially the World Champions, strive to win the belt of all 4 organizations to unify their weight divisions.

Weight Divisions

There are numerous Boxing weight classes within the sport, with there being minor discrepancies amongst the different governing bodies. The weight classes are.

Weight	WBA	WBC	IBF	WBO	BoxRec
201+ lb (91.4+ kg)	Heavyweight	Heavyweight	Heavyweight	Heavyweight	Heavyweight
176 to 200 lb (90.7 kg)	Cruiserweight	Cruiserweight	Cruiserweight	Junior heavyweight	Cruiserweight
169 to 175 lb (79.4 kg)	Light heavyweight	Light heavyweight	Light heavyweight	Light heavyweight	Light heavyweight
161 to 168 lb (76.2 kg)	Super middleweight	Super middleweight	Super middleweight	Super middleweight	Super middleweight
155 to 160 lb (72.6 kg)	Middleweight	Middleweight	Middleweight	Middleweight	Middleweight
148 to 154 lb (69.9 kg)	Super welterweight	Super welterweight	Junior middleweight	Junior middleweight	Light middleweight
141 to 147 lb (66.7 kg)	Welterweight	Welterweight	Welterweight	Welterweight	Welterweight
136 to 140 lb (63.5 kg)	Super lightweight	Super lightweight	Junior welterweight	Junior welterweight	Light welterweight
131 to 135 lb (61.2 kg)	Lightweight	Lightweight	Lightweight	Lightweight	Lightweight
127 to 130 lb (59.0 kg)	Super featherweight	Super featherweight	Junior lightweight	Junior lightweight	Super featherweight
123 to 126 lb (57.2 kg)	Featherweight	Featherweight	Featherweight	Featherweight	Featherweight
119 to 122 lb (55.3 kg)	Super bantamweight	Super bantamweight	Junior featherweight	Junior featherweight	Super bantamweight
116 to 118 lb (53.5 kg)	Bantamweight	Bantamweight	Bantamweight	Bantamweight	Bantamweight
113 to 115 lb (52.2 kg)	Super flyweight	Super flyweight	Junior bantamweight	Junior bantamweight	Super flyweight
109 to 112 lb (50.8 kg)	Flyweight	Flyweight	Flyweight	Flyweight	Flyweight
106 to 108 lb (49.0 kg)	Light flyweight	Light flyweight	Junior flyweight	Junior flyweight	Light flyweight
96 to 105 lb (47.6 kg)	Minimumweight	Strawweight	Mini flyweight	Mini flyweight	Minimumweight

Professional Wrestling

Main article: Championship (professional wrestling)

Unlike Professional Boxing, Professional Wrestling has numerous World Champions and even more regionalized and specialized Championship Belts. The generally recognized World Championship Belts are those of World Wrestling Entertainment, The National Wrestling Alliance, and to a lesser extent Ring Of Honor.The National Wrestling Alliance recognizes numerous regional Championship Belts such as The NWA North American Championship and The NWA British Commonwealth Championship. World Wrestling Entertainment currently has 2 Champions. The WWE Championship is the main championship belt of it's RAW brand and the World Heavyweight Championship is the main championship belt of the SmackDown! brand. Both brands also have their own separate tag team Championship Belts and each has a lesser belt. The RAW brand has the Intercontinental Championship and Smackdown has the United States Championship

Weight classes

Unlike boxing, which has 14 recognized weight classes, professional wrestling generally only has 2. The Heavyweight title and the Cruiserweight/Light Heavyweight title belt. The "weight limit" varies with the Cruiserweight/Light heavyweight divisions depending on the wrestling promotion. The WWE uses 230 lb as it's purposed Cruiserweight limit. Generally speaking, the Cruiserweight/Light Heavyweight belt is often treated as a secondary belt, despite having "World Title" status.

Specialized Championship Belts

Professional Wrestling also has numerous specialty championship belts. The most well known ones are the now defunct WWE Hardcore Championship, The NWA World Television Championship and the ROH Pure Championship. TNA Wrestling dropped the cruiserweight title and went with the TNA X Division Championship , considering it an open weight title. These belts would be contested under different rules and stipulations to make the championship more unique.

Designs

Generally, wrestling has many more uniquely designed belts than boxing. The 4 major boxing governing bodies generally use the same belt design for all their champions, whereas wrestling companies use different styles for each Championship. The most notable exception is Japan's Pro Wrestling NOAH, who's belts follow one specific design. Beltmakers such as Reggie Parks and Dave Millican often create belts that not only set the Championships apart from the others, but become huge collector items as well.

Belt Collecting

Collecting of Championship Belts has become a very specialized, if not expensive hobby. Many Championship Belts have become collector items over the years as much for their designs as the history behind that particular belt. Champonship Belts from the 1980's especially are very sought after by collectors.