FROM a tiny warehouse in Union City, New Jersey the ultimate accessory for the world’s best boxers are painfully handcrafted.
US company Sartonk are responsible for creating the amazing looking WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO championship belts.
Their story started 45 years ago, when Romanian immigrant Ardash Sahaghian began working at an uptown jewellery shop.
He was asked by his jeweller boss Phil Valentino if he would be interested in making belts for the emerging boxing organisations.
The first belt he made was a reproduction of a classic Rocky Marciano championship belt from the 1950s.
In the mid-70s, as boxing bodies were established, Sahaghian was then commissioned for nearly every belt.
In 2017, after dedicating his life to his craft, he passed away at the age of 95 – five years after he was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame as boxing’s master craftsman
Now, it’s his grandson Edward Majian who handles Sartonk’s production line. This is their incredible story.
THE GOLDEN PERIOD
Sahaghian, who is of Armenian descent, had a tough existence in Romania.
After he was tortured in a Communist prison camp in his homeland, he eventually fled with his wife, Nazeli to South Africa and Brazil, before settling in the United States.
There, he became a shoemaker, leather craftsman and toolmaker. All would put him in good stead for his future career as belt connoisseur.
It was at a jewellery shop owned by Paul Valentino Sr, a boxing fan with ties in the sport who was already designing belts for boxers, he would find his calling.
Critical Sahaghian wasn’t keen on Valentino’s designs and told his boss he could do better.
“Take the key. You make what you like,” Sahaghian recalled Valentino telling him in an interview with NJ.com before his death.
Between the 1970s all the way through to the 1990s, Sahaghian contributed to boxing’s golden period when it came to championship belt design.
His work was worn on the waists and shoulders of great champions including Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao.
Most recently, it’s Mexican brawler Canelo Alvarez who is decorated with Sahaghian’s WBA, WBC, and WBO belts.
And despite losing his titles to Oleksandr Usyk, Anthony Joshua kept his belts designed by Sartonk.
The Ukrainian fighter was seen returning them to AJ after the fight, and will now receive his own. Each fight, once they become a champ, has the belt as a keepsake for their journey to the top.
“He really revolutionised how championship belts were made,” president of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, Henry Hascup revealed.
”He’s the modern inventor or designer of these belts. He takes great pride in his product.”
HANDING ON THE BATON
Enjoying near anonymity, Sahaghian worked tirelessly well into his 90s in a small concrete floor workspace
He turned up five days a week, while his wife painted the belt medallions on her kitchen table.
But it was his grandson Edward Majian who knew he had to protect Sahaghian’s legacy.
In 2009, the business became Sartonk – derived from the Armenian word Zartonk which means ‘rebirth’.
The ‘Z’ was changed to an ‘S’ in honour of Sahaghian.
Majian, who had shadowed his grandad in the studio for so long, took over the mantle.
And the quality hasn’t been allowed to slip, either.
HANDMADE
The belts, themselves, are usually 44 inches long and weigh between three to four kilograms – with Majian keeping a close eye on proceedings and his small workforce.
An old but reliable Singer sewing machine is used to create the intricate stitching and designs.
However, they begin life as a mould made of organic rubber – and look more like a film reel tin than a championship boxing belt.
“The currency we work in is our craftsmanship and the respect we have for these fighters,” Majian said.
“Boxing is the sport of the oppressed. These fighters are not coming out of gated communities. For many, boxing has saved their lives.”
Majian refers to the belts as “devotional art” – gold-plated and crystal-studded to honour the warriors that wear them.
“We’re creating symbols of victory and triumph,” Majian revealed.
“We all have this Rocky inside us, waiting to be unleashed.
“I’m often confronted by angry boxing fans who say there are too many belts.
“But each one of these belts is something to aspire to, something you work for.”
And you can bet the next time a boxer wins one, that’s precisely how they will look at it too.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
