People like to rag on AEW for having a lot of belts in circulation, but here’s the thing: that’s a completely fair criticism, and if anything you should rag on them even harder.
I thought the “too many belts” thing was just something WWE fanboys said to distract from the fact that AEW has better workrate and jokes about scissoring, but in putting this list together I realized that, no, there are actually a ton.
Fourteen belts! That’s too many belts! And that’s without me taking into account the variants, the one-offs like that pink Owen Hart strap, and the belts from other promotions that are defended in AEW.
That being said, AEW puts some really nice-looking gear on display, and at the risk of making everybody mad at me I’m going to rank them all from worst to best.
I’ve included ROH belts in this list because until they get their own TV programme (or at least YouTube show) ROH takes up just as much – if not more – screen time than some of the main brand’s championships.
So without further ado, here is every AEW (and ROH) belt, ranked.
FTW Championship
The FTW belt looks like the cow they got the leather for the strap from was left out in the sun too long and got really bad sunburn.
I don’t know who told Taz that orange is his color, but it has no place on a wrestling belt; not even a renegade outlaw title like this one.
The current iteration of the FTW Title definitely doesn’t look as bad as the original one did, with its neon orange strap and plates that looked like they were stolen from the dumpsters of better wrestling promotions (which, considering it debuted in ECW, I wouldn’t rule out), but it’s still not great.
Current champion Hook kind of makes the belt work, but that’s only because he’s Hook.
He could make a belt made out of paper and glitter work.
But that isn’t enough to rescue this ugly belt from the bottom spot.
AEW TBS Championship
Tacking a television network’s logo on to your belt is always going to put you on the back foot design-wise, but AEW really struck out when they decided to name a belt after TNT’s sister network.
It’s a shame too, because the idea of a women’s midcard title is actually great on paper.
Plus Jade Cargill’s dominant 320+ day reign as champion has really made this belt feel like a prize.
But… look at it.
Maybe it’s the baby blue ribbon across the middle, or maybe it’s the fact that the kerning on the lowercase TBS logo kind of makes it look like the “Ho’s Title,” but it could definitely be better.
Maybe when Nyla Rose took this thing she could have given it a little NWA-style makeover.
Or, you know, just thrown it in the trash and replace it with a real belt.
AEW World Trios Championship
These are the belts that the Elite begged to be included in AEW? Look, I’m not saying that CM Punk had a point, but…
No, seriously, they aren’t offensively terrible, but they’re very generic.
They sort of look like midcard titles from the 90s for a promotion that isn’t in business anymore.
Maybe it’s the globe with “TRIOS” written across it in what looks like Windows 98 Word Art, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that one guy would want a copy of this belt, let alone three.
It’s a shame too, because a trios title is a pretty novel concept for a promotion as big as AEW, and there are sure to be some great matches fought over these things.
I just have a hard time that Death Triangle and the Elite both looked at them and said “yes, we will fight for these belts seven times in a row, that is how much we want these hubcaps.”
ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship
Did I design this belt when I was 12?
This belt looks like it belongs to a promotion where all the wrestlers are Power Rangers.
It looks like it belongs to a Beetleborg who works part-time as a dominatrix.
I’m ranking it above the AEW Trios belt because, while it’s definitely more offensive to look at, it definitely gets a couple of points for trying.
The belts are currently held by Dalton Castle and The Boys, and have mostly been defended on Dark: Elevation in recent months.
I can see why Tony doesn’t want to put them on TV; if the Warner execs get word of these belts appearing on their channel they’re going to end up replacing Dynamite with old episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
ROH Women’s World Championship
The ROH Women’s World Championship is absolutely less than the sum of its parts.
The little crown is nice, the overall shape is nice, the side plates are pretty stylish.
But the design is just so busy, if I look at it for too long I start to get a migraine.
If current champion Mercedes Martinez wants to keep hold of this belt with some old-school heel tactics, she doesn’t even have to hit her opponent with it.
She can just hold it up and show it to them.
The design equivalent of a flash bang to unprotected eyes.
AEW TNT Championship
Why does AEW insist on making the TNT Championship so unappealing?
The belt has gone from several designs, and none of them have been particularly good.
The current iteration definitely isn’t the worst by a long shot, but it still isn’t great.
Unlike the TBS Championship, the TNT Title doesn’t suffer from the same level of logo-fatigue that belt does (capital letters help, guys).
But why is the logo suspended in a sea of bright, negative space? It’s such an awkward design, like somebody accidentally shrunk the logo in photoshop and nobody thought to fix it in time.
It’s a shame, too, because the TNT belt has built up a reputation as a real workhorse title, with champions like Cody Rhodes and Miro elevating the belt in a short amount of time to real prestige status.
Hopefully Samoa Joe can continue that tradition, and ignore the fact that the belt was designed by the living embodiment of the “graphic design is my passion” meme.
ROH Pure Championship
Your mileage may vary with the ROH Pure Championship depending on how much you like wrestling belts made in the 70s.
Belts like this definitely have their place, with their squat design and picture of two dudes hugging on the front plate, but I feel like the world has moved on from the need for this type of title.
The belt would probably benefit a little from not having a bright red ROH logo in the middle of every plate, which really throws the whole vibe of the design off.
For what the Pure Title is supposed to be, the understated design sort-of works in its favor.
It’s the perfect belt for somebody like current holder Daniel Garcia, who has a whole world of significantly nicer belts ahead of him.
ROH World Tag Team Championship
Man, FTR really can’t catch a break, can they?
They’re probably the top tag team in the world right now, and yet they have to carry around this pair of albatrosses instead of the AEW Tag Team belts (we’ll get to those).
Thank God for the IWGP Tag Team Championship belts, which they also hold, and which look like something two men would actually want to win.
Then again, they also have those Dollar Tree AAA Tag Team Championship belts as well, so maybe it’s a wash.
I guess my point is this: the ROH belts could definitely be a lot worse, with their weird 3d logo that looks completely out of place on an otherwise classic design.
But they could also be significantly better, considering the company that they keep.
ROH World Championship
This is similar to the Pure belt in a lot of ways, with its stumpy design that looks like it was ripped right out of a territory-era promotion that you’ve never heard of, but it has a couple of things going for it.
Namely: simplicity, and prestige.
This is the title held by CM Punk, Daniel Bryan Danielson, Seth Rollins, and a whole host of other modern legends including current holder Chris Jericho.
It isn’t the prettiest belt, but something about that lineage coupled with the starkly basic design makes it feel like a wrestling talisman, imbued with the spirit of workrate by the wrestling gods.
Plus of all the belts on this list, it looks like it would do the best job of holding your pants up.
So there’s that.
AEW World Tag Team Championship
We’ve finally crossed over into good belt territory.
Honestly, with the focus that AEW puts on its tag team wrestling division, its tag belts had better look bloody good otherwise what are we even doing here?
That being said, the clash of blue and gold lets them down a little bit, and turns what could be a classic design into something a bit more garish than it needs to be.
Then again, AEW has a pretty garish tag division, so maybe that’s the point?
Do the Young Bucks really need to be coronated with regal-looking championship belts when they dress like the only clowns who couldn’t get a date to the rodeo?
I’m sure current champions the Acclaimed are demanding a more sophisticated design in between segments where they ask their surrogate father to scissor them (I kid: I, like everybody who isn’t a cop, love the Acclaimed).
ROH World Television Championship
I know it doesn’t have the pedigree of some of these other top belt designs, but the ROH World Television Championship might be the nicest looking belt in the company.
If I was a Warner executive, I would give ROH a TV deal just to justify this belt’s continued existence.
It has a lot in common with its current holder Samoa Joe: it’s cool, it’s sophisticated, and it could probably kill a man if it hit them in the head.
It honestly looks like it’s from a different promotion; one where the wrestlers smoke cigars and discuss stocks in mahogany chairs.
Take note, weirdly squat ROH World Championship: this is how you belt.
AEW Women’s World Championship
This a real photo finish for the AEW Women’s World Championship, which used to look like a bracelet you’d get in a princess dress up toy chest.
Thankfully Tony Khan saw the light, and replaced the old design with a slightly bigger, chunkier boi just in time for Hikaru Shida to lose it to Britt Baker two days later (life as a Hikaru Shida fan is constant, unending pain).
A little under a year later Baker unveiled this beast of a design, which brought it much closer to being in line with the men’s world title.
The belt looks like a mixture of the Mid-South North American Championship belt of the 1980s (on which it is apparently based) and the old Gift of the Gods Championship from Lucha Underground.
I’m trying to keep WWE comparisons out of this list, but it must be said, this is one area where the little dub has the big dub beat: this thing looks like something you’d want to win, regardless of gender.
AEW All-Atlantic Championship
In living proof that the quality of a belt’s design is in no way connected to its prestige, the relatively new All-Atlantic Championship is easily one of the nicest belts in the company.
The belt gets some well-deserved flak for including as part of its design several flags that are nowhere near the Atlantic Ocean, but I don’t care; it’s a big chunky beautiful boy and I’m going to fight Orange Cassidy for it.
The belt has only been held by two champions so far – Pac and Cassidy – so hopefully in the future it’ll get the kind of pedigree that its incredible visage deserves.
In all fairness, the belt is already beginning to earn a bit of a reputation as a workhorse championship, with Pac defending it at a variety of promotions against a wide array of indie darlings.
I really do wish they’d fix that flag thing, though.
AEW World Championship
I mean, yeah.
AEW couldn’t really go wrong with its world title, after essentially taking all the best parts of the classic IWGP Championship and the Big Gold belt and making them kiss.
I’ve used the word “chunky” more than once in this list, and maybe that’s a gross way to put it but I make no apologies: look at this big chunky gentleman.
It does exactly what a belt needs to: it looks like something you’d want to win, wear, and potentially even wed.
Ever since NJPW decided to intentionally sabotage their big gold in March of last year, the AEW World Championship may just be the nicest-looking top belt in all of professional wrestling.
And it is my sincere hope that MJF uses his reign with it to replace it with something significantly worse-looking, because that’s good heat, brother.
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