WWE Hall of Famer “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase recently appeared on an episode of his “Everybody’s Got a Pod” podcast. He discussed several topics, including the challenges of traveling with the Million Dollar Title.
DiBiase said, “It was a real pain in the ass. I mean — and again, they took a Halliburton briefcase and gutted it, put foam padding in it, and basically made it look like a ring box. And the belt fit right down — when it was folded, it fit right in that Halliburton briefcase. And I had to take that thing everywhere I went. I remember one night, I think we were in Boston. And we went somewhere after the show and had a few drinks and everything. I don’t know what got into me about, ‘Oh my gosh, where’s the belt? Where’s the belt?’ You know, we went back to whoever I rode over there with when it wasn’t there. And you know, come to find out, I put it in the referee’s trunk. I was always afraid I was gonna [lose it.] I had to carry that thing with me anytime we went across the border. And we’d go back and forth to Canada a little bit, but anywhere we went where I was going through customs, I had to show them something that [had] it’s estimated value. And that’s what it was, 40 grand.”
On why the title was so valuable:
“All the stones in the belt, they’re not all diamonds. Most of those stones in the face of the belt, they’re what you call cubic zirconium. When I heard that, I asked my wife, ‘What the hell is that?’ And she goes, ‘That means they’re almost a diamond but not quite.’ I don’t know how you can be almost and not — anyway. So each one of those stones, I guess, was worth about 50 bucks. There were 700 of them in the face of the belt. And I think — I’ve already told this to a lot of people. But if you looked on the back of the belt, where nobody ever saw the back of the belt. But at the back of the belt at the top on the back was — there were three little [things] and I said, ‘What are those?’ They told me, they said, ‘Ted, those are real diamonds.’ ‘Why? Nobody’s gonna see them.’ ‘Well, if anybody ever asks you are the diamonds in the belt real, you could say yes and you won’t be lying.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
