Wednesday, August 14, 2019

NWA Title Art: The Final Version of a Classic (Part 5)

The fourth and final version of the original 1973-1986 NWA World Championship belt, the "Ten Pounds of Gold."
The final version featured new leather with a slightly different cut around the center plate
and a fourth and final different flag configuration.

PART 5
by Dick Bourne, Mid-Atlantic Gateway
Art by David Williams

We pick up where we left off in Part 4:

Not long after Harley Race defeated Terry Funk for the title in Toronto in February of 1977, the refurbished and repainted plates were attached to a brand new cut of leather. This new leather strap had a different style of lacing and was cut slightly different, the main change being that the cut of the leather did not follow the shape of the main plate as closely as the old leather did, which tightly hugged the upper edge of the main plate (as seen in the image at the top of Part 3.)

Pretty soon, however, the plates began to show the same wear and tear as the earlier version of the belt did. The globe was badly dented again, and paint began flaking off the plates in different areas. Most noticeably, some of the segments of ornamental "beads" around the edge of the main plate began to break off as well.

The look of the belt in its last years: dented globe (again), missing beads, missing paint, missing eyelets.

Let's face it, after several years of observation, it was clear that this type of construction for a ring used title belt just didn't make much sense. Those bead-sections were each attached individually with 4-6 beads to a section. And many of them were getting broken off the belt.

In addition, some of the faux eyelets and snaps broke away from the belt, too. By the time Jim Crockett had the new "Big Gold" belt made in 1986, the old Ten Pounds of Gold was in pretty rough shape.

An illustration of the shape the belt was in at the end, with the busted lacing and missing paint.

Artist David Williams has done an incredible job of recreating every version of the belt, with sub-versions illustrating the damage to the belt in later years.

The following chart shows the progression of the belt from its original configuration in 1973 to it's final look in 1986.

The final progression chart.


The book "Ten Pounds of Gold" that I authored with Dave Millican lays out in great detail all four versions of the NWA "domed-globe" belt. (There is a detailed flow chart summarizing those versions in pp. 70-71 of the book.)

My thanks to computer artist extraordinaire David Williams for the amazing work he did on all the different versions of the famous domed-globe belt.

PART ONE : Introduction & History of the Project
PART TWO: The Red Velvet
PART THREE: Black Leather and Dented Globe
PART FOUR: New Globe, Refurbished Plates
PART FIVE
: The Final Version of a Classic

http://tenpoundsofgold.com