Those Bloomin' Belts

On a good day I'm mesmorised and thoroughly enjoy the wonderous journeys we've ventured on recently regarding championship belts, an area that has largely been ignored in the past. Understandably so, because titles were of little importance to wrestling fans in the post war years.

It was a real eye opener to me when Ruslan discovered Mountevans champions wearing belts that pre-dated the ones most of us associate with the Mountevans era, Alan Colbeck's even pre-dating the formation of Joint Promotions. On Morrell shows, which is significant.

Colbeck's 1950 Mountevans belt.

The commonly considered Mountevans Belt.

I was just as amazed when he found early 20th century belts worn by late 20th century wrestlers.

But then there are things I can't get my head round.

I can't believe that any post war promoter awarded belts outright for anyone to keep. These were the same promoters that argued about petrol money and the distance from Wigan to Barnsley.

I'm uneasy with a description of a real Mountevans belt and the ones we associated with the Mountevans champions. Why is the 1950 belt the real one? Who owned that/those belt(s)? It's hard to believe it was Mountevans. In 1947 he said he would award belts. I don't believe that meant that he would personally provide them. There is no evidence of him having any interest in wrestling. He was just a figurehead coaxed into the role by Morrell.

It was Morrell who wrote the Mountevans rules, Morrell who was the driving force behind the creation of Joint Promotions, and Morrell who bought the commonly considered Mountevans belts. When he retired he attempted to retrieve them all but was not entirely successful.

How could a wrestler "retire" a belt? Unless he owned it himself. Possible with the independents and maybe a Joint regional title, but not a Joint Mountevans title I wouldn't have thought.

As I said earlier, Joint Promotions (Mountevans) British titles are the only ones with any lineage or continuity. Occasionally a regional title has a bit of continuity. But when it comes to the independents,you'll be looking for consistency and continuity like a needle in a haystack. A Giant Haystacks. (But Ruslan did make a good comeback when I first said it).

Wrestling used to be simple.