Championship belt

A championship belt is a large, extravagantly designed belt 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 a cup or trophy in other sports. There are several companies in the business of constructing championship belts.

Early history

The first belt given as a prize for accomplishments within the ring was presented in 1810 by King George III to bare-knuckle boxer Tom Cribb, after he defeated Tom Molineaux, an American former slave.

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 strive to win the belt of all 4 organizations to unify their weight divisions. The Ring also created a championship system that is "intended to reward fighters who, by satisfying rigid criteria, can justify a claim as the true and only world champion in a given weight class."

WWE

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (d/b/a WWE) is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company that deals primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing and direct product sales. WWE also refers to the professional wrestling promotion itself, founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation. As of 2014, it is the largest wrestling promotion in the world, holding over 300 events a year, and broadcasting to about 36 million viewers in more than 150 countries. The company's headquarters are located in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in major cities across the world.

As in other professional wrestling promotions, WWE shows are not legitimate contests, but purely entertainment-based, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and choreographed matches, though they often include moves that can put performers at risk of injury if not performed correctly. This was first publicly acknowledged by WWE's owner Vince McMahon in 1989 to avoid taxes from athletic commissions. Since the 1980s, WWE publicly branded their product as sports entertainment, which is considered to acknowledge the product's roots in competitive sport and dramatic theater.

Championship

In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.

Championship systems

Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.

Title match system

In this system, a competitor has to challenge the current champion to win the championship. A competitor can challenge the current champion after defeating other challengers. This form of championship is used in wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts and other combat sports.

Tournament system

The term championships (in the plural) is often used to refer to tournament competitions, either using a knockout format, such as at Wimbledon and other championships in tennis, or a mixed format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds, such as used in the European Football Championships.

A variation of the knockout format is the "best-of-X" or series format where two teams face each other for a specified number of times until one team wins the majority of specified games, most of the time the remaining games are not played anymore; only then is the losing team eliminated from contention and the winning team advances to the next level. This format is predominant in American sports such as baseball, ice hockey and basketball, and on test cricket.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship

The WWE World Heavyweight Championship is a world heavyweight championship created and promoted by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE. The championship was established by the then-World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) on April 29, 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship, following the promotion seceding from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). The title is currently held by Triple H, who is in his ninth reign.

It is the oldest championship currently active in the promotion, and is presented as being the most prestigious title in WWE, with many matches for the title having headlined pay-per-view (PPV) events – including WWE's signature PPV event WrestleMania.

For the period between 2002 and 2013, the title was one of three world titles in WWE, along with the World Heavyweight Championship and ECW Championship (2006−2010). But following the decommissioning of the ECW title, and unification with the World Heavyweight title, it is once again promoted as WWE's sole primary championship.

World championship

A world championship is generally an international sports competition open to elite competitors from across the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport or contest.

The title is usually awarded through a combination of specific contests or, less commonly, ranking systems (e.g. the ICC Test Championship), or a combination of the two (e.g. World Triathlon Championships in Triathlon). This determines a 'world champion', who or which is commonly considered the best nation, team, individual (or other entity) in the world in a particular field, although the vagaries of sport ensure that the competitor recognised at the best in an event is not always the 'world champion' (see Underdog).

Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead they may organise a world cup competition, or they may organize both. Often, the use of the term cup or championship in this sense is just a choice of words. Some sports have multiple champions because of multiple organizations such as mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.