THE BELT
"That'll be an heirloom, I'll treasure that. And I'll pass it on to my boys and maybe they'll pass it on to theirs."
- Bob Caudle in a phone message, June 2024
In May of 2024, I had special custom belt made for Bob Caudle. I designed it as a tribute to Bob's legacy as one of the greatest wrestling announcers and the "voice of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling" for nearly three decades. On June 17, 2024, David Chappell, Andy McDaniel, and I visited Bob and Jackie at their home in Raleigh, and I presented the belt to him.
You never know how someone is going to react to something like that. Especially someone like Bob, who was as humble as he could be about his long, celebrated, announcing career. Bob did not keep any wrestling memorabilia from his days calling matches for Jim Crockett. He loved seeing and visiting with the boys all these years later, and he loved getting phone calls from David Crockett, Ole Anderson, and Jim Ross, who would occasionally check on him. He enjoyed attending conventions and visiting with fans. But he didn't hang on to physical things. That stuff just wasn't important to him. So I fully realized going in that he might not see value in the belt, at least not as we as fans do.
Boy was I wrong. Bob was thrilled with it. He was grinning from ear to ear. "Look Mama," he said to his sweet wife Jackie. "My own belt!"
He couldn't understand how such a thing could be created with his image on it. We explained the technology to him, how it was a bit different than the old days and the championship belts he remembered.
He enjoyed seeing the old Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, National Wrestling Alliance, and Jim Crockett Promotions logos on the side plates, as well as a 1970s era WRAL TV logo, where Bob worked as news, sports, and weather broadcaster for over 20 years.
THE PHONE CALL
Bob called me a few days after our visit to thank me for the belt. There was something magic about that call, Bob talking about passing the belt down to his family. For once in my 20-plus years knowing him, I was thrilled I missed a call from Bob Caudle. Why? Because I have his voicemail message he left me that day. I treasure it. It's something I can play over and over and keep forever.
"Dick, this is Bob. I just wanted to call you and thank you for your visit and tell you how much we enjoyed it, and how much I appreciated you going to all that trouble to give me that belt. That'll be an heirloom, I'll treasure that. And I'll pass it on to my boys and maybe they'll pass it on to theirs, and maybe that thing will be around a hundred years from now and somebody will look at it and say, 'what in the world is that all about?'"
LEGACY
Bob did indeed pass the belt on. At around the time of his wife Jackie's memorial service in the spring of 2025, Bob gave the belt to his son Mike, a surgeon in Knoxville, TN, who many years earlier had introduced Bob in Charlotte when Bob was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the NWA Wrestling Legends Hall of Heroes. Bob told me he didn't want anything to happen to that belt when he died, and that he knew Mike would take care of it.
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| Bob Caudle's Great-Grandson, Andrew Smith |
Not long after, Mike gave the belt to his grandson (Bob's great-grandson) Andrew Smith. Andrew is a high school wrestler in Tennessee. His mother told Mike that Andrew was inspired to wrestle because of the legacy of his great-grandfather.
I can't imagine anyone better to have that belt now, and hopefully, as his great-grandfather wished in that phone message a couple of years ago, Andrew will pass the belt on to another generation, perhaps one of his own children one day.
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A Belt for a Champion (Original Story About the Caudle Belt) by Dick Bourne
The One Constant You Could Count On by David Chappell
So Long for Now: Bob Caudle Passes Away by Dick Bourne
WRAL Feature on the Death of Bob Caudle
An Afternoon with Bob Caudle (2017) (one of our many visits!)
Bob Caudle and the Benefit of the Doubt
Crockett, Caudle, Schiavone Reunion in Raleigh
Tribute to Bob Caudle
Bob Caudle Named Program Director at WRAL (1975)