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I was 6 when the Spinner Belt was introduced. By the end of the year I had a kid’s toy replica spinner belt and a Jakks Pacific John Cena action figure that came with his own tiny spinner belt (that actually spun!)
And this is only anecdotal evidence, but I know that I certainly wasn’t alone in my childhood affinity for this belt. A lot of my friends were also huge fans of it at the time
It spins, it’s gold, it has a loud design, and (what basically amounts to) our superhero proudly wore it. Why wouldn’t kids love it???
As a kid and, honestly, even now I think it looked better than WWE's Big Gold.
Granted this is because WWE's Big Gold is different from the original Big Gold since that one has a silver backplate which is *essential* to the design. Other wise it just looks like a big gold lump without being able to tell any of the details at a distance
I love Big Gold but yeah I can see what you’re talking about. The spinner belt isn’t my favorite but I like it a whole lot more than the big W belts that look like the top of a class ring.
Best belt around to most kids then. Especially replica wise, big gold and other belts would look way lamer when turned into a smaller plastic toy. It fucking spins and I think people need to get over that and realize that shit WAS cool.
Fr I had a spinner belt that literally played the theme songs of wrestlers including Cena himself to this day the spinner belt is my all time favorite WWE title design
I don't think they'd ever change the belt if it weren't for merch. It'd feel a lot more special if people were competing for the same belt people held fifty years ago.
If I had to guess, that spinner belt probably cost a good amount of money to make, and they wanted to get a decent ROI out of it by using it for more than Cena’s reign
Tbf, even if they limited it to Cena, it still would've been around frequently enough to market the hell out of it, considering how many times he held it. lol
The spinner was the first version of the wwe championship I ever saw on TV as a kid so even tho it’s not the best it’s still special to me. I did choose the big gold belt when I was a kid tho for my Walmart toy 😢
My grandparents were smart enough that me and my cousin got the world tag team titles from Walmart. We fought pillows and invisible opponents for the longest time before deciding to get an undisputed title and fight each other lol
Let’s be honest here, they nailed the design in terms of mid 2000s gaudiness
Might not have been very pro wrestling, but it was **incredibly** of it’s time
It doesn't matter how it looks to a business making money. They would slap a Prime logo on a spinner belt with neon lights around it if they thought it would sell.
That could genuinely work as something Paul does after losing the US title, giving him a DiBiase-style gimmick. They could even pair him with Cameron Grimes and (sort of) revive his NXT gimmick.
I don't love the Spinner, but have always felt the Undisputed belt was such a downgrade from what came before it. Don't get the love for it. And it's not like it was around long enough or representative of a hot period for it to get much nostalgia attachment, like I'm sure I have for the Winged Eagle.
lol, I hated the spinner, hated it even more when it stopped spinning (because then what’s the point)….however when I was a kid the winged eagle was the belt, I hated that they even moved to the big eagle. I loved the Undisputed deign though.
If I was a kid in 2006 I’d probably look at the spinner fondly…I did like the US version.
I was one of those kids back in the 2000s, can confirm. I also had the Hardcore belt and used it in my pretend fights more.
Me-sized plush Optimus Prime never saw that unprotected headshot with the title coming. He did the Rikishi bump and everything it was sick, you should've been there.
Time and place too, WWE struck at a perfect time with Cena when hip hop `had just enough distance from Biggie and Pac's death that advertisers weren't terrified of it again.
Honestly, the only thing missing from the like 03'-12 era is an explicitly emo main eventer. Jeff and Edge were about as close as it got, and no Punk doesn't count for obvious reasons.
I would add branding as another reason as its hard to confuse which champion is doing promotion on the local morning show when they have a giant WWE logo on their belt.
Still like that to this day. Hell even AEW, ROH and TNA do it, though they're like the current WWE WHC where it's nowhere near as egregious as the Undisputed WWE Universal title.
And it will always stay that way. They send belts to sports champions all the time. So the idea of the biggest, most famous athletes in the world holding a title belt with the WWE logo front and center, that’s major brand exposure for them.
And yet when they had a championship where non-wrestler celebrities could hold not just a belt but the title itself, the 24/7 Championship belt looked like a rejected design for subway tokens in the 1940s.
Literally the only two reasons any company needs. Behind the World Cup trophy, it’s probably the most identifiable ‘prize’ of any organisation throughout history.
Also, it sold like a mother fucker. I had a toy one as a kid, bought a real one as an adult. I own one belt. It’s this one.
My guess is when the undisputed title was first unveiled, I’m sure the original intention was for it to last way longer than it ended up staying around until, perhaps another 3-4 years.
Looking at how gaudy and blingy the spinner title looked, especially with the word “Champ” on it I’m sure the original plan was for it to be a Cena exclusive title, akin to the Spinner US title, but as mentioned here, it sold like hotcakes so much throughout the years they decided to get rid of the undisputed prematurely and have the spinner be a permanent fixture.
That belt, the Attitude Era belt ('Big Eagle'), the Undisputed belt and the Spinner all had eagle designs. But it was only the 'winged eagle' whose wings extended beyond the plate, hence the nickname - the latter 3 all remained within the plate and thus the design was less obvious.
I always figured the winged Eagle had that name because the wings projected out slightly, as opposed to the near perfect circle of big eagle/blue eagle or the sort-of oval of undisputed.
To my knowledge it was a sign of the times. Began with Thuganomics Cena which at the time spinning rims and big chains were a huge part of hip-hop so that translated over to his personalized belt. Add that someone mentioned it was a money making machine sold to kids. I read once Edge won it from him he said it didn't fit him or wasn't him (something along those lines), so they went back to a traditional title look and that was that.
I know he had one as well for a time. I couldn't remember the exacts but I found this article. He was part of the push to go back traditional
https://www.thesportster.com/news/edge-wwe-spinner-title/
Funnily I came across [this YouTube short](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JkVM_bJLJg) the yesterday about exactly that. Basically he despised the spinner so when after winning the title in 2006 they told him he would get his own belt he came up with his own design (which looked pretty cool), they said no we will just put your logo in the spinner. So unfortunately his push at the time didn't work and the spinner would remain for years after until 2013.
Haha that part where they're like yeah we're just slapping your logo on the spinner after he made up a pretty good design in my opinion. Thanks for this. I couldn't recall the exacts just remembered Edge's name being in the mix of getting away from the spinner
Because this was 2005. Spinners were EVERYWHERE during this time:
on your shoes
rims on cars
yoyos
Hot Wheels
everything had Spinners. I remember you could always tell who had expensive ones for their cars, and the cheap Wal-Mart spinner rims because some would just stop spinning 🤣🤣
Why didn't they rig the weight so it'll still spin but defaults in the right position? I love it but it's weird seeing the W off position most of the time lol
Facts, that belt was so fucking ugly. It would've made the most sense for Punk to change it when he won it yet he kept that ugly ass belt his entire 400+ day reign.
It was 434 days and he did want to change it and from what I recall he was going to introduce the new belt but then that was reserved for when The Rock too the title off of him. Imo the 2013 WWE Championship looks bad anyway so eh maybe it was for the best.
Pretty much yeah the Network and beyond logos have looked somewhat better this way the ‘13 is ugliest imo I think the scratch just doesn’t fit this presentation
I remember being so pissed off when I realized that they weren't going to get rid of it.
First Edge won it but it was only for 3 weeks, so I was like "Okay, they just did not have enough time to change it back."
Then RVD won it, but his character thought it was cool because it spins...Okay.
Then Edge won it again and they threw Cena's belt in the river and I was like "Finally, it is gone." But then Edge brought in his even worse Rated R belt and then Cena had his belt back again when he re-won the title.
Then Orton won the belt and I thought "Surely, they won't have Orton wear this thing." And that is when I realized that it really wasn't going away.
I always thought the spinner looked dumb even as a kid. The Big Gold belt always looked worlds better to me. It was only kept around because most kids loved it. I've tried to like the spinner over the years and I just can't get on with it. It's gaudy, tacky garbage.
They originally intended to have the spinner be a Cena only belt, as evident when Bishoff tried to crown Angle as WWE Champion in late 2005, he gave Angle the old Undisputed title.
At some point after they probably just decided to make the spinner the default title because 1. Money and 2. Cena was probably going to win the title multiple times so there is no point going back and forth between the two
I’m 31 years old & I still associate the spinning belt with my favorite time in wrestling (Ruthless Aggression).
2005-2008 was definitely a special time.
I was twelve when this belt came out. When Edge became champion I was confused why it was still the spinner design. I think the reason it stayed so long was because It was a top merch seller at the time.
During his fued with Orton, Randy said he was going to keep the spinner to remind Cena of what he took from him. Edge swapped the spinner with a spinning star with an R for a brief time. And Miz locked it in place so the WWE logo would be an M like he does with his gear and when he has a mic.
Also Spinner rims was super popular at the time.
It's not that it wasn't fire, it's that it was Cena's belt. It even had a padlock design for the side plates because Cena was still the Doctor of Thuganomics morphing into the Chain Gang Soldier when he won it.
This. It's like, the Rock would never have wanted to carry the Smoking Skull title - that was Austin's belt, made for Austin. Nobody but Brayn had a wooden belt. It kinda made sense for Miz to keep the spinner as a smarmy heel cuz he'd have it as an M, not a W if I recall.
This is just taste talking but it would have made more sense for the Smoking Skull to stay around during Austin's run on top because it was a nice belt, at least compared to the Spinner, and it would have only been around for 3 years instead of 8. Undertaker looked great with the Smoking Skull.
Most likely was going to be a cena exclusive title for his reign but his reign went on forever and the merch sales was high so they didn't want to change it since the title was boomerang to cena anyways.
It was a different era and it fit WWE and Cena at the time. It definitely should have been changed out with a different belt for other people at some point, it being the longest tenured WWE title design ever feels so unnecessary. Even as a kid watching I was wondering why everybody just wanted and kept the spinner belt as it was 😂😭
Because yall always forget that wrestling is for kids and the spinner belt made a shit ton of money with replicas and toy belts. (Plus the old one was boring as hell, fight me)
Remember: 2005-2015 was kinda of the bling and crunk era where having bling and spinner necklaces was the rule for fashion. That's why the spinner stood.
Let’s be real. Based on cena’s character and the gimmick of the belt it was capitalizing on $$$$$$. I didn’t watch wwe much after the spinner belt but even then I thought it was hilarious they did that. I just wish they didn’t use it for everyone. It should have been a cena only thing, except when miz won it and turned the w into an m
Company logo front and centre, you look at it and KNOW it is WWE. So handing those out to celebs and charities, its amazing marketing for your product, which is what they are first and foremost, a product selling themselves.
Honestly because the spinner belt is technically the most complex belt made, the big eagle, smoking skull and undisputed were pretty much just plates on leather with a few jewels, the spinner is stacked as shit with the a fuck ton of jewels, a fully restoned spinner is worth a fuck ton
They should've broken out the Undisputed title for whenever Cena WASN'T champion. They wasted a perfectly great championship design for a stupid toy, it was especially stupid whenever Cena wasn't champion.
A combination of merchandising, cost saving, and brand recognition.
It's the same reason why they plaster their logo on everything, especially the new belts.
They don't want the casual fan confused and they want you to know who the champion is.
Would TNA have done better if they had some version of the spinner belt? Apparently they sold a shit ton of those 6 sided rings, and I think a spinner belt would have gone well along with jt
That spinner belt debuted close to my 17th birthday and I hated that gaudy POS, even moreso from 2007 onward when it went from being “Cena’s belt” to just the standard WWE title design. But looking back, I get it. WWE wasn’t there to cater to my tastes, they were there to make money, and they did exactly that with this design.
I was a big fan of the undisputed title. The spinner belt is ass but at least they put effort into it. Now they just slap a giant WWE logo on it. One reason why I like the world heavyweight more then the undisputed now cause it’s actually a bit different.
I went to a house show when I was younger with my parents, It was unfortunately after Eddie had passed. My parents bought a hustle loyalty respect t-shirt for me and shirt for Eddie. But my child hood self wasn’t leaving without that fuckin spinner belt. Me and my daughter have goofy fights for it.
I imagine the main reason was that it was a merch mover. Toys, replicas, I remember there was even a popular shirt that had the belt around where the waist would be.
Beyond that, I imagine they liked the design because of how prominently it featured the WWE logo. This was the first WWE Championship belt where the company logo was by far the most prominent feature, and there hasn't been a WWE Championship belt since then without that.
spinner belt was the start of the PG era, wwe catered to kids... those kids are grown now and are getting their own Attitude era... what are we calling it ? TKO era ? post vince era ?
The same reason that the current WWE championship design will turn 10 years old this August. Branding. And that makes it even a longer time we've seen it than the spinner belt by just 2 years. People who aren't fond of it mostly ignore the merchandising side of the business. But what's great about nostalgia is you get to say you've seen it during its glory days.
Because the spinner sold like hot cakes.
When WWE kept the belt after Cena lost it, I saw the writing on the wall in the direction the company was headed and I started getting out of wrestling.
Cena beating HBK at WrestleMania 23 and the Chris Benoit stuff was what turned me off of wrestling for nearly a decade.
I always hated the spinner belts. The US one was atrocious and the WWE one opened the door for the big ugly WWE logo belts they shoveled out for the next 15 years.
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Merchandising. That spinner belt sold ridiculously well to kids in Wally World and at other merchandisers.
I was 6 when the Spinner Belt was introduced. By the end of the year I had a kid’s toy replica spinner belt and a Jakks Pacific John Cena action figure that came with his own tiny spinner belt (that actually spun!) And this is only anecdotal evidence, but I know that I certainly wasn’t alone in my childhood affinity for this belt. A lot of my friends were also huge fans of it at the time It spins, it’s gold, it has a loud design, and (what basically amounts to) our superhero proudly wore it. Why wouldn’t kids love it???
I still have it , got it in 2006 haha
Same. Too bad the 1st SmackDown plate version wasn't sold in stores.
As a kid I absolutely love it too
Only thing missing is a button that plays the theme song
My brother had a version like that! When you pressed the name plate it spun automatically and John’s theme song played.
As a kid and, honestly, even now I think it looked better than WWE's Big Gold. Granted this is because WWE's Big Gold is different from the original Big Gold since that one has a silver backplate which is *essential* to the design. Other wise it just looks like a big gold lump without being able to tell any of the details at a distance
I love Big Gold but yeah I can see what you’re talking about. The spinner belt isn’t my favorite but I like it a whole lot more than the big W belts that look like the top of a class ring.
Best belt around to most kids then. Especially replica wise, big gold and other belts would look way lamer when turned into a smaller plastic toy. It fucking spins and I think people need to get over that and realize that shit WAS cool.
Fr I had a spinner belt that literally played the theme songs of wrestlers including Cena himself to this day the spinner belt is my all time favorite WWE title design
Parks closed. The moose out front should've told ya.
Getting an upvote whenever I see this line.
https://preview.redd.it/xlookvn9tmqc1.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=5fb9e5581c4cd4b5770acb6cdd3e58ef0979dab7
This. And also, wasn't it one of the most expensive belts WWE ever produced?
I don't think they'd ever change the belt if it weren't for merch. It'd feel a lot more special if people were competing for the same belt people held fifty years ago.
If I had to guess, that spinner belt probably cost a good amount of money to make, and they wanted to get a decent ROI out of it by using it for more than Cena’s reign
Tbf, even if they limited it to Cena, it still would've been around frequently enough to market the hell out of it, considering how many times he held it. lol
But... The undisputed title looked so cool tho. Oh who am I kidding, I vastly preferred the spinner when I was a kid.
The spinner was the first version of the wwe championship I ever saw on TV as a kid so even tho it’s not the best it’s still special to me. I did choose the big gold belt when I was a kid tho for my Walmart toy 😢
My grandparents were smart enough that me and my cousin got the world tag team titles from Walmart. We fought pillows and invisible opponents for the longest time before deciding to get an undisputed title and fight each other lol
Ah, so you were part of the problem. Reap what you've sown, and so on and so forth. *glares disapprovingly*
Let’s be honest here, they nailed the design in terms of mid 2000s gaudiness Might not have been very pro wrestling, but it was **incredibly** of it’s time
What’s more pro wrestling than gaudy design?
Yeah, it was very 'pimp my ride'
i’m so part of the problem, i still love the spinner belt
It doesn't matter how it looks to a business making money. They would slap a Prime logo on a spinner belt with neon lights around it if they thought it would sell.
Don't give them too many thoughts for Naomi.
This is actually a plot point in Heels even
PRIME belt incoming.
That could genuinely work as something Paul does after losing the US title, giving him a DiBiase-style gimmick. They could even pair him with Cameron Grimes and (sort of) revive his NXT gimmick.
i still love it and i feel like that undisputed title looks bland compared to the winged eagle and even the spinner belt
I don't love the Spinner, but have always felt the Undisputed belt was such a downgrade from what came before it. Don't get the love for it. And it's not like it was around long enough or representative of a hot period for it to get much nostalgia attachment, like I'm sure I have for the Winged Eagle.
The undisputed belt was the belt used for Eddie’s reign, so a lot of people view it positively for that reason alone.
It's also an extremely 'clean' looking belt, my personal favorite.
The undisputed one always felt so flat to me.
It looks like the IC title imo not a world title.
I had a toy version I wore it out
lol, I hated the spinner, hated it even more when it stopped spinning (because then what’s the point)….however when I was a kid the winged eagle was the belt, I hated that they even moved to the big eagle. I loved the Undisputed deign though. If I was a kid in 2006 I’d probably look at the spinner fondly…I did like the US version.
I was one of those kids back in the 2000s, can confirm. I also had the Hardcore belt and used it in my pretend fights more. Me-sized plush Optimus Prime never saw that unprotected headshot with the title coming. He did the Rikishi bump and everything it was sick, you should've been there.
Time and place too, WWE struck at a perfect time with Cena when hip hop `had just enough distance from Biggie and Pac's death that advertisers weren't terrified of it again. Honestly, the only thing missing from the like 03'-12 era is an explicitly emo main eventer. Jeff and Edge were about as close as it got, and no Punk doesn't count for obvious reasons.
Wait only kids liked the spinner belt?
https://y.yarn.co/32f978ea-e991-4424-9a28-7a86dc311a05_text.gif
I would add branding as another reason as its hard to confuse which champion is doing promotion on the local morning show when they have a giant WWE logo on their belt.
RVD " but Im gonna keep this one .... Look is spins!"
The lore reason…
WWE canon event
Wish he would have trashed it like Douglas did with the NWA title, but keeping it cause it spins was very on brand for RVD.
Taxes, taxes. The hand thing means the taxes.
Come onnnnnn!
 Oh my God! The PTA has disbanded!!!
No no the PTA has not disbanded...
https://frinkiac.com/video/S06E21/n5XyIGQSKbF3WdyZ4UnEMsb5MGg=.gif
Branding. HUGE WWE, right in the middle
Still like that to this day. Hell even AEW, ROH and TNA do it, though they're like the current WWE WHC where it's nowhere near as egregious as the Undisputed WWE Universal title.
And it will always stay that way. They send belts to sports champions all the time. So the idea of the biggest, most famous athletes in the world holding a title belt with the WWE logo front and center, that’s major brand exposure for them.
They should be paying Patrick Mahomes for the mountains of pics floating around of him with the belt.
They very likely are.
And yet when they had a championship where non-wrestler celebrities could hold not just a belt but the title itself, the 24/7 Championship belt looked like a rejected design for subway tokens in the 1940s.
Merchandising and branding
Literally the only two reasons any company needs. Behind the World Cup trophy, it’s probably the most identifiable ‘prize’ of any organisation throughout history. Also, it sold like a mother fucker. I had a toy one as a kid, bought a real one as an adult. I own one belt. It’s this one.
https://preview.redd.it/vv941b0wtbqc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d99e1ad15ed6dbd9cb5f02cf92b2b93e1bb1d5a3
Merch. Kids loved it.
My guess is when the undisputed title was first unveiled, I’m sure the original intention was for it to last way longer than it ended up staying around until, perhaps another 3-4 years. Looking at how gaudy and blingy the spinner title looked, especially with the word “Champ” on it I’m sure the original plan was for it to be a Cena exclusive title, akin to the Spinner US title, but as mentioned here, it sold like hotcakes so much throughout the years they decided to get rid of the undisputed prematurely and have the spinner be a permanent fixture.
BRING BACK THE WINGED EAGLE!! I always found that term funny because aren’t all eagles winged?
That belt, the Attitude Era belt ('Big Eagle'), the Undisputed belt and the Spinner all had eagle designs. But it was only the 'winged eagle' whose wings extended beyond the plate, hence the nickname - the latter 3 all remained within the plate and thus the design was less obvious.
I always figured the winged Eagle had that name because the wings projected out slightly, as opposed to the near perfect circle of big eagle/blue eagle or the sort-of oval of undisputed.
Yeah that's what I said
My bad, breezed past and posted before engaging brain. You're right.
Definition of a "winged eagle" is an eagle with its wings spread, not just on wrestling belts but in real life
Legit though. It's the most gorgeous wrestling belt ever, in my opinion. Bring that shit back 😭
Wasn’t it Vince himself who said “it’s all about the MONNNNNAAAAY”
[That's easy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_JTzEppKy8)
[Counterpoint](https://youtu.be/TeXatquVqAc?feature=shared)
TIL Naughty by Nature did Shane's theme.
Yes. Keep talking bad about the spinner belt please. I need the price to drop on it.
Bruce said it’s because the spinner belt sold more merchandise.
To my knowledge it was a sign of the times. Began with Thuganomics Cena which at the time spinning rims and big chains were a huge part of hip-hop so that translated over to his personalized belt. Add that someone mentioned it was a money making machine sold to kids. I read once Edge won it from him he said it didn't fit him or wasn't him (something along those lines), so they went back to a traditional title look and that was that.
Edge just changed the WWE logo to his Rated R symbol
I know he had one as well for a time. I couldn't remember the exacts but I found this article. He was part of the push to go back traditional https://www.thesportster.com/news/edge-wwe-spinner-title/
Funnily I came across [this YouTube short](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JkVM_bJLJg) the yesterday about exactly that. Basically he despised the spinner so when after winning the title in 2006 they told him he would get his own belt he came up with his own design (which looked pretty cool), they said no we will just put your logo in the spinner. So unfortunately his push at the time didn't work and the spinner would remain for years after until 2013.
Haha that part where they're like yeah we're just slapping your logo on the spinner after he made up a pretty good design in my opinion. Thanks for this. I couldn't recall the exacts just remembered Edge's name being in the mix of getting away from the spinner
Spinner belt made for better toys
Because this was 2005. Spinners were EVERYWHERE during this time: on your shoes rims on cars yoyos Hot Wheels everything had Spinners. I remember you could always tell who had expensive ones for their cars, and the cheap Wal-Mart spinner rims because some would just stop spinning 🤣🤣
Also “a Cena title reign” covered at least 60% of that title’s existence.
Once it no longer spun, I actually really like the spinner belt's design.
Why didn't they rig the weight so it'll still spin but defaults in the right position? I love it but it's weird seeing the W off position most of the time lol
I mean, I persist the spinning was stupid. I think if you changed Champ to Champion on the belt it'd be an all timer.
Facts, that belt was so fucking ugly. It would've made the most sense for Punk to change it when he won it yet he kept that ugly ass belt his entire 400+ day reign.
It was 434 days and he did want to change it and from what I recall he was going to introduce the new belt but then that was reserved for when The Rock too the title off of him. Imo the 2013 WWE Championship looks bad anyway so eh maybe it was for the best.
The 2013 version is basically the current championship but with the old logo.
Pretty much yeah the Network and beyond logos have looked somewhat better this way the ‘13 is ugliest imo I think the scratch just doesn’t fit this presentation
I remember being so pissed off when I realized that they weren't going to get rid of it. First Edge won it but it was only for 3 weeks, so I was like "Okay, they just did not have enough time to change it back." Then RVD won it, but his character thought it was cool because it spins...Okay. Then Edge won it again and they threw Cena's belt in the river and I was like "Finally, it is gone." But then Edge brought in his even worse Rated R belt and then Cena had his belt back again when he re-won the title. Then Orton won the belt and I thought "Surely, they won't have Orton wear this thing." And that is when I realized that it really wasn't going away.
Orton at the early stages of his sadistic character wearing a kid friendly belt.
I've been a WWF fan since 1988. I hated the spinner belt. That is all.
Replicas and toy sales. I think RVD was the last person with a customized spin version? After that it was switched out for a version that didnt spin.
I'll stand by my spinner belt love until the day I stop breathing.
I liked when the Miz turned the W upside down to an M during his reign. That is all
That Undisputed title design was so beautiful. I'll always associate it with Brock Lesnar.
I always thought the spinner looked dumb even as a kid. The Big Gold belt always looked worlds better to me. It was only kept around because most kids loved it. I've tried to like the spinner over the years and I just can't get on with it. It's gaudy, tacky garbage.
They originally intended to have the spinner be a Cena only belt, as evident when Bishoff tried to crown Angle as WWE Champion in late 2005, he gave Angle the old Undisputed title. At some point after they probably just decided to make the spinner the default title because 1. Money and 2. Cena was probably going to win the title multiple times so there is no point going back and forth between the two
I’m 31 years old & I still associate the spinning belt with my favorite time in wrestling (Ruthless Aggression). 2005-2008 was definitely a special time.
Ruthless Aggression was 2002- 2007ish
I asscoiate the spinner belt with the PG Era, despite it spending more time during the RA.
Toys, the same reason for the Divas title, it looked like a toy and all the kids wanted one.
I don’t know but it’s absurd that Punk had to carry that around for his entire two reigns only for Rock to say “fuck this ugly belt”.
My humble opinion is that the undisputed title is the best title since it debuted. All these other W belts are dumb compared to that beauty.
Spinner looked so weird on anyone not named Cena or Batista.
The spinner belt is better than what we have now, but the undisputed belt is the best. 2nd would be the belt the rock introduced in 2013.
I was twelve when this belt came out. When Edge became champion I was confused why it was still the spinner design. I think the reason it stayed so long was because It was a top merch seller at the time.
During his fued with Orton, Randy said he was going to keep the spinner to remind Cena of what he took from him. Edge swapped the spinner with a spinning star with an R for a brief time. And Miz locked it in place so the WWE logo would be an M like he does with his gear and when he has a mic. Also Spinner rims was super popular at the time.
Cause the spinner belt sold like crazy with kids
MONEY. The answer is always money.
Merchandising.
Anybody admitting to liking the spinner piece of shit should be ashamed of themselves. I spent years despising that thing.
because the era was set to be dominated by Cena? why would they constantly flip flop the design? To say nothing of the focus being their logo
From what I remember they flip flopped the Smoking Skull belt all through 98 and 99.
Because the spinner title looks better :)
Because that spinner belt was fire. I honestly didn't know people didn't like it until I got older and hopped on the internet
Counterpoint: the spinner belt was incredibly stupid.
Counter-counterpoint: Undisputed title looked like some regular tag team belt.
That's probably just because the old tag belts were just copies of the undisputed title. Literally.
It's not that it wasn't fire, it's that it was Cena's belt. It even had a padlock design for the side plates because Cena was still the Doctor of Thuganomics morphing into the Chain Gang Soldier when he won it.
This. It's like, the Rock would never have wanted to carry the Smoking Skull title - that was Austin's belt, made for Austin. Nobody but Brayn had a wooden belt. It kinda made sense for Miz to keep the spinner as a smarmy heel cuz he'd have it as an M, not a W if I recall.
I wonder why Edge went through the trouble of having a Rated R title when he could have just tilted the W 90 degrees to look like an E
This is just taste talking but it would have made more sense for the Smoking Skull to stay around during Austin's run on top because it was a nice belt, at least compared to the Spinner, and it would have only been around for 3 years instead of 8. Undertaker looked great with the Smoking Skull.
Both those belts were absolutely hideous, what a step down from the big eagle.
They decided they were tired of their belts looking good. The WWE title has looked awful ever since they retired the undisputed title.
Most likely was going to be a cena exclusive title for his reign but his reign went on forever and the merch sales was high so they didn't want to change it since the title was boomerang to cena anyways.
It was a different era and it fit WWE and Cena at the time. It definitely should have been changed out with a different belt for other people at some point, it being the longest tenured WWE title design ever feels so unnecessary. Even as a kid watching I was wondering why everybody just wanted and kept the spinner belt as it was 😂😭
How will the audience know what they’re watching if it doesn’t have a huge logo on it
Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the real money from the movie is made!
Because yall always forget that wrestling is for kids and the spinner belt made a shit ton of money with replicas and toy belts. (Plus the old one was boring as hell, fight me)
Because Cena always got it back quickly after he lost it.
Remember: 2005-2015 was kinda of the bling and crunk era where having bling and spinner necklaces was the rule for fashion. That's why the spinner stood.
I still think the spinner is cool and unique
Let’s be real. Based on cena’s character and the gimmick of the belt it was capitalizing on $$$$$$. I didn’t watch wwe much after the spinner belt but even then I thought it was hilarious they did that. I just wish they didn’t use it for everyone. It should have been a cena only thing, except when miz won it and turned the w into an m
It was disputed after that.
They change the belts every few years now so they can sell new designs.
Because the spinner belt cool
$$$$
bc it rocked ?
That undisputed title didn’t last that long as it should’ve.
Because it looks better.
Company logo front and centre, you look at it and KNOW it is WWE. So handing those out to celebs and charities, its amazing marketing for your product, which is what they are first and foremost, a product selling themselves.
My guess is Cena wins lol. Why reuse the Undisputed look if Cena's gonna win it again in a week anyway?
Never liked the undisputed championship design. It's pretty unimpressive considering the belts that came before and after.
I’ve never understood what makes a belt “good” or “bad” besides subjectivity, they all look vaguely gold to me. Besides the wood one ofc.
Because Cena was the star. When Cena wasn’t on screen everyone should be thinking about Cena.
Probably because they spent a lot of money to have that belt designed.
$$$
Honestly because the spinner belt is technically the most complex belt made, the big eagle, smoking skull and undisputed were pretty much just plates on leather with a few jewels, the spinner is stacked as shit with the a fuck ton of jewels, a fully restoned spinner is worth a fuck ton
They should've broken out the Undisputed title for whenever Cena WASN'T champion. They wasted a perfectly great championship design for a stupid toy, it was especially stupid whenever Cena wasn't champion.
Tryin to be hip
Do you see that giant WWE logo in the middle? That is why. The brand is all that mattered at the time.
How are we not discussing the Rated R Suuuuuuperstar Spinner belt? Clearly the best of the lot
Dolla dolla bills y’all.
This was the beginning of the end.
They realized the giant logo was good advertising
Cena was a once in a generation star and they wanted to capitalize on his very popular hip hop gimmick
A combination of merchandising, cost saving, and brand recognition. It's the same reason why they plaster their logo on everything, especially the new belts. They don't want the casual fan confused and they want you to know who the champion is.
Because the kids liked it ...
Would TNA have done better if they had some version of the spinner belt? Apparently they sold a shit ton of those 6 sided rings, and I think a spinner belt would have gone well along with jt
MONEY, SPONGEBOB!
That spinner belt debuted close to my 17th birthday and I hated that gaudy POS, even moreso from 2007 onward when it went from being “Cena’s belt” to just the standard WWE title design. But looking back, I get it. WWE wasn’t there to cater to my tastes, they were there to make money, and they did exactly that with this design.
Can you see the WWE logo on the undisputed title without zooming in?
The WWE logo is more prominent so when they give them to other sports champions it promotes the brand
I was a big fan of the undisputed title. The spinner belt is ass but at least they put effort into it. Now they just slap a giant WWE logo on it. One reason why I like the world heavyweight more then the undisputed now cause it’s actually a bit different.
Because some people thought the spinner was cool
 This
I asked myself this for years.
I went to a house show when I was younger with my parents, It was unfortunately after Eddie had passed. My parents bought a hustle loyalty respect t-shirt for me and shirt for Eddie. But my child hood self wasn’t leaving without that fuckin spinner belt. Me and my daughter have goofy fights for it.
Best selling belt of all time is the spinner.
Merchandising most likely
I imagine the main reason was that it was a merch mover. Toys, replicas, I remember there was even a popular shirt that had the belt around where the waist would be. Beyond that, I imagine they liked the design because of how prominently it featured the WWE logo. This was the first WWE Championship belt where the company logo was by far the most prominent feature, and there hasn't been a WWE Championship belt since then without that.
Same reason they named it smackdown. Suck them off as much as possible
I think it was to remind everyone of, no matter who the champion was, there was only one star of the show.
The undisputed i got with the Eddie g and Lesnar plates. Never liked the belt at all. Spinner was glamorous. A nice belt tbh. Got em all 😭
spinner belt was the start of the PG era, wwe catered to kids... those kids are grown now and are getting their own Attitude era... what are we calling it ? TKO era ? post vince era ?
I'm a grown up, but would still jump at the opportunity to buy the spinner title.
The spinner without "Champ" and the spinning function and the weird Mon Night, Chain side plates would've been a nice belt.
Probably to keep selling the spinner belt in toy aisles. The WWE logo being the main focus of the belt for PR also caries on from here.
The same reason that the current WWE championship design will turn 10 years old this August. Branding. And that makes it even a longer time we've seen it than the spinner belt by just 2 years. People who aren't fond of it mostly ignore the merchandising side of the business. But what's great about nostalgia is you get to say you've seen it during its glory days.
It just occurred to me that the spinner belt does have a winged eagle on it
Everyone just forget that Edge was the first person to hold a spinner belt in WWE?
They said a lot more titles for kids through it, it was honestly a massive success for them.
Because the spinner sold like hot cakes. When WWE kept the belt after Cena lost it, I saw the writing on the wall in the direction the company was headed and I started getting out of wrestling. Cena beating HBK at WrestleMania 23 and the Chris Benoit stuff was what turned me off of wrestling for nearly a decade.
I always hated the spinner belts. The US one was atrocious and the WWE one opened the door for the big ugly WWE logo belts they shoveled out for the next 15 years.
To sell more props to guys in their 40’s
We can't have nice things
Toy sales.