Status of WCW Title Belt Accessories

As best as I can figure, being involved in the championship belt community and being around people who know their stuff, I'll list off what I know.

1) ECW "Gen 1" (original TV, Tag v1 and v2, World v1 and v2, and Taz TV) belts were all done by Mike Vartanian and are all bootlegs of not-yet-copyrighted Reggie Parks & Dave Millican designs.
No info exists as far as I know about legally licensing the designs since the originals were copies of Reggie/Dave art to begin with.

2) ECW's "Gen 2" (TV v2, Buzzsaw Tag v3, World v3, and Taz FTW v2) belts were all done by Joe Marshall (JMar), with some design-work contributed by Paul Heyman and Taz.
ECW owned the rights to those designs as part of their deal, and WWE's buyout included the belt designs, so WWE has the ability to allow Mattel to do ECW belts for figures and 2k to do ECW belts in the games, with the exception of the Taz FTW belt, which is owned by Taz, and JMar can only make Taz FTW belts for collectors with Taz's permission.

3) WCW's "Gen 1" (Domed Globe style TV v1, TV v2, TV v3/Cruiserweight v1, Light Heavyweight, United States v1, Tag v1, World Heavyweight 1991, and Vegas Big Gold World Heavyweight) belts were all designed/made by Reggie Parks & Dave Millican (henceforth, "Parks/Millican/Mann Belts", or "PMM" for the rest of this post).
WWE only has the rights to use the 1991 belt (the one that's bundled with Ron Simmons) for reasons unknown to me at this time, but that means that 2k can put it in the games and Mattel can put it on figures if WWE wishes.

4) WCW's "Gen 2" (TV v3, Cruiserweight v2, United States v2, Tag v2 and v3, Women's Light-Heavyweight and Heavyweight, Hardcore, and "J-Gold" World Heavyweight) belts were all done by JMar.
Here's how the licensing for that goes as far as I know:
- Since the TV v3 is a copy of the TV v2, JMar had to pay a fee to PMM to be able to do it.
- The CENTER plate for the Cruiserweight v2 is a copy of PMM's "Unified" style, but JMar apparently altered it enough to not have to pay fees.
- The "J-Gold" version of the Big Gold was a 3D CNC version of the Big Gold rather than hand-engraved like the original Crumrine Big Gold, so JMar did not have to pay fees to Crumrine Jewelers over the design.
- WWE's buyout included the WCW belts, so WWE can use them and allow 2k to put them in the games and allow Mattel to do them for figures if they wish.
- GENERIC versions of the Gen 2 belt designs (including the 3D CNC Big Gold) have also been licensed out to Belts By Dan to make for public orders as part of a deal between Dan and Joe so that Dan could help get Joe's outstanding orders to his customers who've been waiting upwards of 12 years for belt orders filled. This does not affect WWE's usage of the belt designs, since WWE only actually owns the WCW-logoed belts and not the designs themselves.

5) WWF's belt designs that were made by PMM (Intercontinental, classic late 1980s and 1990s versions of the Tag Team, Winged Eagle World) are owned by PMM, and WWE licenses those designs for the games and figures (which is why you see the "Parks/Millican/Mann Belts" in the opening of the 2k games).
The designs for the 1985 Domed-Globe style Tags (which have been used by multiple companies), and the 1980s and 1990s Women's belts are also owned by PMM, and WWE has so far NOT licensed those designs for games and figures (except the 1990's Women's, which is bundled with Alundra Blayze), presumably since there isn't enough demand to do so, thus they don't feel it's worth the money to do it...question mark?


It's also worth noting that the version of the Retro IC's texture-map used in the 2k games for ALL the "Classic Intercontinental" belts is actually a modified version of JMar's version that Cody Rhodes debuted and not the PMM version that came after that. Most of the Retro IC belts bundled with figures like Maryse and Ultimate Warrior are actually the JMar version as well, for some reason.


This is all what I can gather to the best of my knowledge, I know that there's some other people with closer knowledge of the situation who can fill in the gaps and make corrections where warranted. I hope any of this was helpful.

For comparison, the modern IC belt in figure form is still the JMar, even though in reality WWE replaced it with a PMM shortly after Cody debuted it:



Whereas both light-blue and dark-blue classic IC Elite belts are the correct PMM design:

Regarding 5.. a source close to the situation with PMM and the WWE tells me different. My understanding is that PMM has signed off on the WWE using the designs for replicas, figures, and whatever else, although it was implied that would come with an additional cost.

I specifically asked why the belts were in the 2k games and not with the figures, and asked if PMM had a deal with 2k directly. I was told that the deal was though WWE, and extended to figures, toy replicas, and whatever else.

The Cruiserweight title being on the package for the HOC figures is interesting, because intellectual property is that whether it's in a belt form or print... but I believe the rights to make a physical copy of wrestling belts can move separately from that?

A shame that JMar, PMM, Bill, and a WWE rep can't just tell us outright what the hold up is. Speculation based on what we can piece together sucks.

I think a lot of it has to do with WWE wanting to push their stuff because they are the one company that won the Monday night wars. Just a thought 

Yeah but they could throw us a bone every once in a while.  Especially with Hall of Champions this is the perfect time to do it.

Huh, interesting. Did it ever make it to TV as the Cruiserweight belt or was the traditional version always used?

I don’t believe that their not wanting to get the belts out there. Due to the fact we have old Nitro and NWO ring skirts.

Nor would screenprinting logos onto existing fabric templates cost nearly as much as molds for both belts and plates.

So I asked my source again, and was told that Mattel does indeed have a license from PMM that includes the WCW belts.. but that obviously would not include the JMar belts... and from what was previously said, most of the WCW belts from the Monday Night War are JMar.

That said, it would be cool to get a WCW TV Title... and maybe the first version of the Tag Titles.