That's not intended to be a backhanded question - speaking as someone who did not follow wrestling week-to-week during the 50s and 60s, I was hoping to get some input from some of the fans who were. Now, obviously championship belts mattered (look no further than Brian Maxine), but in the grand scheme of things did the champion significantly impact the box-office? Did they have drawing power? Did they consistently top the bill? Did the heavyweight champ over here (Billy Joyce; Ernie Baldwin; Geoff Portz; Albert Wall to name just a few) possess the same level of prestige and reverence in the eyes of the fans and the promoters that, say, a Lou Thesz, Bruno Sammartino, Big Bill Miller, Whipper Billy Watson or a Gene Kiniski had across the Atlantic?
It's probably an asinine question and maybe I'm overthinking it, but it's something that's always fascinated me. Watching some old-school NWA tapes from the 60s/70s/80s, some of the boys (a la Harley Race, Dory Funk Jr. or Ric Flair) would have you believe that their very lives depended on having the belt around their waist - whereas (from my perspective, at least) here in the UK, a championship - and, by extension, the champion - was a non-entity and was merely a tool, a trinket.
The top guys didn't need the belts to draw, but a championship match always looked good on the marquee poster and added to the prestige of the show.
The lighter weights as we got into the late 1960s/early 1970s seemed to be the weights where we saw regular championship matches around the halls and on tv. The heavyweight championship lost a lot of prestige for me in the 1970s as Big Shirley was allowed to plough through almost every heavyweight at Joint (there was one or two that didn't or refused to lie down for him) meaning the heavyweight talent lost a lot of credibility and drawing power.