Originally written on December 24, 2020 (I wanted to start the new year with a positive-to-me post)
I recently redecorated my office. Primarily because I had exceeded too many running medals for my medal bar, and I had exceeded too many blets for my blet wall, and my running medals and my blets are my favorite things to collect, so I decided to do some reconfiguration in order to proudly display all of both that I have.
First, I decided to create a new medal bar that would one, go all the way across the entire room, and two, actually be made of metal. Not because it would be metal to make it out of metal, but the fact that a large number of medals accumulates weight very quickly, and I simply needed something strong and sturdy to be able to withstand a gradual increase of weight over time because I have no intention of ever stopping running and collecting medals.
So I basically made a new bar out of actual iron pipes and flanges, mounted to the studs, and measures in at 128” long, which basically accomplishes my goal of going across the entire room. There is now plenty of room for expansion, and I don’t have to fear that they will eventually bend, sag and break, because it is not a weak curtain rod but is made of actual iron.
And then we have my pride and joy, my wrestling blet collection, which simply needed more space in order to display them all. So I decided to swap walls between the blets and my giant Jinx graphic, because I needed to have one entire wall in order to accommodate all my blets, and Jinx could comfortably go on wall vacated by all the blets.
I simply had to procure more wood to mount more belts onto and do a good bit of patching and repainting to all the walls prior, but in the end, I was able to comfortably get all 18 of my blets up on the wall, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out.
But the whole point of this post ultimately was the fact that (almost) every blet has a story or an inspiration behind it, and really for nobody’s edification except my own because I can’t really imagine anyone other than me actually caring, I decided to share all of them, because I have 18 fucking blets so that’s a lot of stories or inspirations to relay.
Sometimes it’s a feud, sometimes it’s a singular match, or sometimes it’s a particular wrestler(s) who make me want a blet. Or sometimes, something in life happens that inspires me to go out and get them, but as I said, (almost) every blet has a story behind it. So here’s the reasons why I have all my blets, in chronological order:
WCW United States Championship: This was one of my all-time favorite blets, in terms of design, the people who held it, and the feuds that inspired me. But basically after I got back into wrestling in 1998 because my parents allowed me to have cable again and I started watching WCW, I fell in love with this blet when it was the focal point of the DDP-Chris Benoit-Raven feud that spanned for the better part of year, and I always equated it as the workrate title, and I liked the way it looked.
WWE European Championship: I’ve always been fascinated with obscure midcard titles, but if I had to pick any one guy who inspired me to want this blet, it probably had to have been Eddie Guererro. There’s nothing like a Mexican-American defending the European championship against guys like Essa Rios and Billy Gunn to really bring prestige to Europe’s title.
ECW World Championship: honestly, I don’t really have that great of a story for this one. I just so happened to be on eBay one day and I saw this for a surprisingly low price that didn’t have a lot of competition going on, and I was able to snipe it without much difficulty. Because when I was actively watching ECW, I was always fan of the TV title more, because Shane Douglas held the World title for seemingly years without end, but this was an opportunity for me to get my first World title.
WWF World Championship: this too doesn’t have that great of a story, because it was really primarily on account of the fact that this was listed on eBay through a third-party seller who didn’t know the real value of replica belts, nor how to market it, and it was all ambiguously labeled with no affiliation or information about the product. I actually called the seller, verified the dimension and materials, and immediately bought it for a ridiculously low cost as far as replica blets are concerned, and ultimately my collection would need a real WWF World championship if it ever were to be completed.
WCW Tag Team Championship: my friends and I were in Las Vegas, and I had learned how to play craps by completely copying every single move that one of my friends was doing, and it just so happened to be during a really extremely hot streak, so my brother and I both declared that if we could get up to at least $260 ahead, we would pull that money and each buy these blets. We did, and so we did. To this day, that was one of the better Vegas trips I can remember in terms of actual gambling luck.
WWF Tag Team Championship: one of my best friends was getting married, and since I was named best man, I felt that I should get him a gift worthy of best man status. So I tracked down a pair of WWF Tag Team blets, and the rest was history.
WWF Intercontinental Championship: at the time, Cody Rhodes was doing the lord’s work with the Intercontinental championship, and introduced the baller white strap version. It inspired me to want that particular belt, but then I came across the classic black strap variant at a surprisingly low price on eBay, and so I pulled the trigger on it instead. But I’ve always loved the Intercontinental title, mostly because I associated it with Mr. Perfect, and his epic feuds with guys like Kerry Von Erich and Bret Hart.
WCW World Championship: another blet that I just so happen to casually be looking on eBay, as I tended to do from time to time whenever it felt like I wanted to get another blet. Looking back, this was apparently an auction with a high buy it now price, and I just kind of threw up a random, what I thought was a low-ball offer, but somehow barely scratched the reserve price and won it. But no collection would ever come close to being complete without a Big Gold Blet, so here we are.
ECW Television Championship: so by the time this period of my life came around, I had mentally determined that I should strive for ten blets, despite the fact that I had nowhere to put any of them beyond the first five. But because I had soldered past five, it was my mission to get to the next round number, which would be ten, so I started scratching the barrel thinking of more reasons to justify other blets. And because I loved the 23 month reign of Rob Van Dam as ECW’s television champion, it was an easy call when I once again, made another low-ball offer on an eBay auction and actually won this blet, #9 in my collection.
ECW Tag Team Championship: I actually had two reasons for getting this one; firstly the obvious fact that this would be nice round blet #10, the perfect way to end my collection, and two, when I came across this on eBay, it was actually for a pair of them for a reasonable price, and I can’t remember if it was a birthday gift or a housewarming gift, but I ended up giving the other one to my brother, but the whole point of it was to get one for my own which made it #10 and where I claimed for the twentieth time that I was done.
NXT Championship: In all fairness, a really long gap occurred between blet #10 and this one. At least 5-6 years passed until I was once again bitten by the blet bug, and it was because one of my closest friends gave me his WWE Network login information, and so I could actually start watching network programming, most notably NXT, and I grew to enjoy it more than the main programming. But during the stellar match between Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade Cien Almas at TakeOver: Philly, I found myself feeling very inspired to pursue getting a replica, and an eventual blet sale made the decision for me, and it was now 10+ blets, which would be a long way from finished now.
IWGP World Championship: not long after my developed love for NXT, I happened to be hearing about what was going on in New Japan Pro Wrestling over the last few years, most notably the rise of Bullet Club before they completely got so bonkers over they became uncool to me. But I heard of this legendary match between Kazuchika Okada and this guy, Kenny Omega, which piqued my curiosity and upon watching it myself, the match lived up to the hype, and by the time the 48-minute clinic was over, I decided that I wanted an IWGP replica. Problem is, NJPW makes only a number of replicas a year, and they’re made of real gold, and are roughly $2,100, and are next to impossible to get. That being said, this blet is a known Pakistani ripoff, but it looks good on my wall, so I was willing to deal with it.
NXT North American Championship: when this blet came out, I wanted to dislike it, but I was already an Adam Cole fan from his work in Ring of Honor, and when he was the inaugural champion, I was like reluctantly on board with it. But really, the inspiration came when the Velveteen Dream, a guy that I really wanted to dislike when he first showed up, just blew me away with stellar TakeOver after TakeOver, and his eventual win over Johnny Gargano. I actually deliberated a ton about getting this blet, because this would the first non-black strap in my collection, and I didn’t like the idea of it busting up my feng shui, but eventually I relented, and bit the bullet. Honestly though, not only did the strap color irk me, it also ended up being both the shortest strap and the thickest width, so it just fucked shit up in all sorts of directions. But no regrets.
IWGP Intercontinental Championship: I never thought that I would develop an interest in New Japan’s tertiary championships, but then Chris Jericho made this completely out of the blue jump to New Japan, and put on a clinic with Kenny Omega, falling short in winning the IWGP United States Championship. But then he attacks Tetsuya Naito and gets into a feud with him, and when he won the Intercontinental championship from him, and added it to his total of numerous WWE Intercontinental championship reigns, I realized that I wanted one too. This is also a known Pakistani ripoff, but the question really is, if no replicas of this are ever made, is it truly a ripoff? Regardless, the white strap sticks out like a sore thumb on the wall, but I like the title, its history and the blet itself to really care (that much).
IWGP United States Championship: the funny thing that I literally purchased both this and the IWGP Intercontinental blets on the same day. Pakistani knockoffs are kind of cheap enough like that to warrant buying more than one at a time. But the inspiration came from the freshly freed Jon Moxley, whom I really wasn’t that big of a fan of when he was Dean Ambrose in the WWE, but when Moxley voluntarily left the WWE on his own accord, released a scathing promo how Jon Moxley was back, and then literally started showing up all over the place in random territories and promotions, and then culminating with appearances in New Japan where he eventually beat Juice Robinson for the IWGP United States Championship, when the opportunity presented itself to get a decently priced replica, I took it.
WWE United States Championship: there’s really not too much of a story behind this one. Frankly, I’d never really been that big of a fan of this belt’s design, but I eventually talked myself into wanting this by remembering guys like John Cena and Rusev fighting over this blet, and how at the time, guys like Andrade and Ricochet were the guys repping the blet, and when during the empty-arena Wrestlemania of 2020 had a sale on blets and this was deeply discounted, it made it easier to pull the trigger on it.
ROH Tag Team Championship: whenever I get an Amazon gift card, I never know what to spend it on. I always feel lame spending it on consumables or eBooks, and I often end up with more anxiety than if I had no free money at all. I asked my friends what they would spend it on, and being the blet guy I am, one of them responded, why not put it towards a blet? I was all like “pssh, Amazon doesn’t sell blets… do they?” Turns out that they do. Granted, 85% of them are Pakistani knockoffs, and I’ve made clear that I’m not above going that route, but when I came across this one, that was disclaimed that it was a true Figures, Inc. replica, I pulled the trigger, used the gift card to knock the price down to something way less offensive, and got myself a blet whose holders have historically held at the same time with IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championships, like ReDragon and the Young Bucks.
NXT UK Championship: in all honesty, the only blet I was truly interested in from NXT UK was the tag team championship, which is something I’ve brogged about numerous times on end at this point. The reality is that that the WWEShop will probably never release it, solely because of me. A combination of a recent championship match between Walter and Ilja Dragunov, which was probably the most brutal and violent match I’d seen in ages was probably the WWE Match of the Year for 2020, sparked some interest in the NXT UK Championship, and then it was solidified with the WWEShop had some pretty impressive Black Friday prices on all blets, and this was the one that won out, which I fully admit to caving into the sale price fallacy with it.
And there we have it. 18 stories, some more interesting than others, how I came to have 18 goddamn blets hanging off of my office wall. And the thing is, there are still a few more blets that I’d love to gobble up if I could get my hands on them, and as much as it would be a colossal pain in the ass to reconfigure, I’d rather have more blets than bitch about the labor that goes into reconfiguration.
