Spartan effort: WWE debuts new tag-team title belts
Last night on RAW, WWE revealed their new tag straps, which will now be known simply as the WWE tag-team championship instead of the Unified titles. Pretty nice touch with former WWF World tag-titlist Bret Hart presenting the new belts to the Hart Dynasty as well, though I hope they don’t continue to overexpose the Hitman; his appearances will mean more if they’re sporadic.
A self-admitted belt mark, I’m digging the unique, distinct design of the belts, which feature Spartan warriors on the main bronze buckle and on two additional smaller plates, along with two sunburst-style WWE bronze medallions. If anything, they’re certainly original and a departure from the eagles and globes of the Former Federation’s belts. (I can only assume a Michigan State art student designed these.) Sort of a modern twist on the old-school IWGP tag titles from nearly 20 years ago. Now if they can only book tag teams properly to make the belts mean something again.
The only problem is that on TV, the plates looked like oversized copper pennies under the bright lights. Besides, isn’t bronze the color of runners-up everywhere? Hey, it could be worse–it could be matching spinner belts. (Man, I wish someone would pull a Superstar Graham and destroy the current WWE heavyweight title belt–wonder if John Cena would burst into tears?)
I wonder if this means they’re eventually heading toward a bout to unify the WWE heavyweight and World titles, with a single champion defending on both RAW and SMACKDOWN to help restore a bit of prestige in the fans’ eyes.
That IS a damned good looking belt—wonder if Vince and his his writing wonderkind will ever make it mean anything? At least TNA is TRYING to make tag team wrestling mean something these days…even though they keep pushing Abyss as as a performer people want to see.
Impressive looking close up.
they look a lot better close up. I watched RAW (oh it was so mediocre) and I was looking at the belts and you nailed it Scott on TV the look like big pennies glued to a belt. yes maybe if they can just stop throwing together 2 “superstars” and actually have teams that feel like the guys would actually be friends outside of the ring they might have a tag team division worth something
they look a lot better up close because it is a bit blury