Search for a Hulk Hogan belt and you will be offered three different ones, all apparently the same title, labelled 84, 85 and 86. That is not a sizing system or a product code. Those numbers are how collectors distinguish the successive versions of the WWF World Heavyweight Championship that were used during Hogan's first run with it, and knowing the difference is the whole of buying one correctly.

Why there are three

Hogan won the WWF Championship from The Iron Sheik in January 1984 at Madison Square Garden, and held it for roughly four years. That is an unusually long time for a belt to be on television without being changed, and it was not: the championship was revised more than once during the reign.

The company was transforming at the same time. WWF went from a regional promotion to a national one over exactly this period, and the belt was updated as the production values around it grew. Each version is a little more elaborate than the last.

Collectors settled on the year labels because the alternative is a paragraph of description every time. The Hogan 84 in brass is the earliest of the three and the version tied to the title win itself, which is why it is the one people who care about that night specifically ask for.

How to tell them apart

You are looking at the centre plate and the amount of ornament around it.

The earliest version is the plainest — a relatively restrained plate that still belongs visually to the wrestling of the 1970s. The later versions are progressively larger and busier, with more relief and more elaborate side plates, ending with a belt that looks like it belongs on the WrestleMania stage rather than in a regional arena. The Hogan 86 in 24k gold plate is the most ornate of the three and the usual choice for a display piece.

If you are buying as a gift and cannot find out which one is wanted, the 86 is the safer guess. It is the version most people's mental image of the era actually matches, because it is the one that was on screen during WWF's biggest stretch of mainstream attention.

What came next

The design that followed is arguably more famous than any of them: the Winged Eagle, introduced in 1988 and used for about a decade afterwards. It carried the championship through the end of Hogan's first era and well into the next generation, which is why it is the single most collected WWF belt there is.

If you are building a display of this period rather than buying one belt, the Winged Eagle replica next to one of the Hogan-era designs tells the story better than either does alone — you can see the promotion changing between them.

The WCW years

Hogan's second act was in WCW, where he held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship — the Big Gold Belt, a much larger four-plate design with its own NWA ancestry. During the nWo period the belt was famously defaced with spray paint, which is a genuinely unusual thing for a promotion to allow and a detail collectors of that era remember clearly.

That gives a Hogan collection a natural shape: an early WWF belt, the Winged Eagle, and a Big Gold Belt. Three objects, three distinct periods, and none of them looks like the others.

Choosing a tier

The Hogan-era designs are available across the usual constructions. Zinc plates keep it light and affordable. Brass suits these belts particularly well, because the earlier designs rely on weight rather than ornament to feel substantial. Gold-plated and machined versions are for display, and the machined plates bring out relief that casting softens on the busier 86 design.

All three Hogan-era belts, the Winged Eagle family and the WCW designs sit together in the WWE, WWF and WCW belts collection.