Declan McMahon and Noah Pierre detail the origins of their championship belt.
The Indiana Hoosiers football team are currently 2-3 on the season. Their next game is scheduled for October 14th and they are playing the 6-0 Michigan Wolverines.
While WWE was in Indianapolis, Indiana for their Fastlane Premium Live Event, members of the Hoosiers football team attended the show, one of which was Declan McMahon, son of Shane McMahon. Declan was sporting the custom Indiana Hoosiers WWE Championship belt.
The Hoosiers pushed out a video on their socials of McMahon and defensive back, Noah Pierre, discussing the origins of the belt. Declan stated that his father thought it was a great idea and added that a lot of players on the team discuss WWE amongst each other.
McMahon: My name is Declan McMahon and I was born into the family of running the WWE. My grandfather, Vince McMahon, founded the company. Just growing up around it has been just amazing.
Pierre: I had a lot of different ideas and asked, ‘What’s something that nobody’s done before?’ Because you know, we wanted it to be unique to us.
McMahon: Me and a bunch of the guys on the team including Noah, we talk about WWE a lot. We were thinking about bringing a belt to I.U. would be so cool. So, after we got the green light from the captains, we were like, ‘Alright, let’s really make this thing happen.’ My dad instantly was like, ‘That’s sick’ and my dad says it all the time, he’s like, ‘When you’re the champ, it means something,’ right? And having that belt and having that meaning just on the sideline, it just creates a lot of energy and a lot of momentum. First rendering of the belt, we just wanted to get it right away obviously. So, we just had the two side plates just rendered in and then in the other belt that we’re gonna be bringing out, that one, it took a little bit more rendering. It felt like a lot of pressure at first because you’re like, ‘A lot of people are gonna see this,’ right? And it’s not like the set belt that everybody sees on TV. It’s truly one-of-one. There’s none other like it in the world.
Pierre: Declan just told me, ‘Whatever you want, we could do it.’ So we got the I.U. part on there, it spins. That’s unique. I haven’t seen anybody do that. We got ‘Swarm D’ on there. We wanted it to be a bright red color so it could stand out.
McMahon: And we just wanted to incorporate all of it so just paying homage to the things that we live and breathe as a culture so when you hold that belt, it means something to be a part of that defense.
Pierre: Once we actually got it in and feel how heavy it is, I didn’t expect that because you know, when you’re young, you have the fake WWE belt from Walmart or something like that. Being able to actually hold the belt and see how, ‘Dang, this is real’ and I came up with this myself and with my teammates.
McMahon: And taking a brothership that my family’s created and something that started so, so small and just turned into something so incredibly massive. To tie that part of my life, just my family history into something that I really have boughten into which is Indiana football, it’s surreal to see. To have those two worlds collide is incredible.
Declan’s father Shane made his return to WWE on night two of WrestleMania 39. He had an impromptu match with The Miz, but Shane tore his quad in the early stages of the bout.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the original source with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
