The Smoking Skull Belt, The Rated-R Spinner....the Brahma Bull title belt? It almost happened.
The Rock has his own customized championship belt, much like his foe "Stone Cold" Steve Austin does, however, his never saw the light of day on WWE programming. Featuring The Rock's signature Brahma Bull head across the front, the belt was actually slated for a WWE debut but got lost along the way.
On a recent Fightful Wrestling Podcast, Dan of Leather by Dan explained the story.
"The actual belt did exist. Joe Marshall did make it for WWE. It featured a 3D Brahma Bull head. What happened was the belt was actually lost in the mail. He sent the belt via FedEx as the story goes, and it was magically lost. WWE decided to go a different direction, but a few weeks later it was found. This belt was a myth for years until WWE finally decided to display it at Axxess," Dan said.
The title belt has since been featured on video games, but as Dan lets us know, there are also some cheap knockoffs being sold.
"Once that belt was posted, dozens of fans taking pictures and posting them online, you have counterfeiters making copies. As far as I know, there are only two authentic ones made -- the one WWE had made, and the one Joe was rushing to have made to replace it that is owned privately," said Dan.
The Rock didn't end up with one of those title belts, and also was never on television wearing the title. He did, however, try to keep the last ever spinner championship about five years ago.
"The Rock is a ring-used belt collector. His daughter tweeted a picture of his ring-used winged eagle championship, and a ring-used spinner. The story I heard was that he actually took the ring-used spinner home with him after he debuted the new logo design in 2013. The WWE call The Rock and get that back. I wanna know who the person is that had to make that call. That's a tough sell. (A collector) gifted that back to the Rock," said Dan.
When I asked the Rock about the title belt being lost in the mail, he says he hadn't heard of that, and it all boiled down to creative similarities with the title. Dan later cleared up the story, saying that the title belt was only lost for a few days, but too long for WWE.
You can see the clip of Dan talking about the situation above, and check out his work at Leather By Dan.
