My Homemade Championship Belt

Like many wrestling fans (even John Cena), when I was a child I dreamed about becoming a professional wrestler (not a sports entertainer).  I still have my grade 6 yearbook where I was asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  My answer was simple: a wrestler because they have big muscles!

Every winter I would get bronchitis; this allowed me to miss a lot of school.  On these days off, I would stay in my tighty-whities and wrestle my pillow on the bed.  I would walk down the “aisle” wearing my house coat allowing me to pretend that I was the Macho Man.

I had the “robe” and “my tights”, but something was missing: I needed my WWF championship belt.  I’m not sure if the WWF had a store and sold title belts like they do now.  Even if they did, there was no way I would be able to afford one (I still can’t justify one now – even though I so desperately want one).  Was this gone to stop me?  I don’t think so.

There was a simple solution to this problem.  I had to create my own title belt!

I’ll be honest, I am not a crafty person.  Growing up, I cannot think of anything else that I ever did that was creative.  Creating my own championship belt is the only thing I remember doing that would be considered “crafty”.

I remember that my Dad had brought home a big roll of blank paper.  This was the perfect starting point.  I began by unrolling some of it and measuring it around me.  Once I had found a good length, I marked it and began cutting it.  This was already a great start.  To make it look more like a belt, I decided where the middle would be and drew a circle around it that almost filled the entire height of the paper.  From there, I marked out two long rectangles; one on either side of the circle.  This would be the “strap” that would wrap around my waist.

I now had my rough title belt shape.  It was time to follow the lines and cut around the rectangles and circle.  You might say that my belt was really beginning to take shape (bad pun).

It was now time to fill it in.  I started with the “plates” on the side.  I recall two or three on each side (thinking about Hulk’s belt from the late 80s).  The main part of the belt had eagle wings and a picture of the earth in the middle.  I did my best, but as I said, I wasn’t very crafty so my eagle wings didn’t look great.  Of course, when I was finished it didn’t matter that it didn’t look perfect.  I finally had my WWF title belt.

The final touch that I had to add was the ability to take the belt on and off.  I was able to accomplish this by cutting a slit on one side the strap.  I then cut out two triangles on the opposite side (kind of making a T shape at the top of the strap).  This allowed me to tuck the T shape into the slit, securing my belt firmly in place.

With my belt finished, it was time to spruce up my ring entrance.  I strapped on my newly made belt underneath my house coat.  Once I arrived to the ring (my parents bed), I climbed into the squared circle and revealed my new belt to the audience (my dog).  The title was on the line and there was no way my pillow was going to take it from me! Ding-ding-ding, the match is on.