The PBA Championship Belts!

Here's an idea: Why not keep track of the winners of the very first game this season (there are two, so we'd go by the complication later), give them hypothetical belts, then once the winner of those games are defeated, the hypothetical belts would pass over to the winning team. We'd do that until the season ends. It's like NBA Regular Season Championship Belt at Grantland, only that we'd go into playoffs, and unification matches, if we're lucky!

But first, since there are two opening games this season, so we'd have two titles: The Alvin Patrimonio belt, which begins at the Ginebra vs. San Mig Coffee game at Araneta, and Ramon Fernandez belt for the Meralco vs. TNT game at Cebu. Of course named after the only players that won four MVP titles. Don't worry Jawo fans, I'd name the unified title after him. Let's begin!

Alvin Patrimonio belt

1. Ginebra def. San Mig on November 17 to win the title.
2. Ginebra def. ROS on November 24 to retain.
3. Ginebra def. GlobalPort on November 28 to retain.
4. Meralco def. Ginebra on December 3 to win the title.
5. GlobalPort def. Meralco on December 5 to win the title.
6. GlobalPort def. ROS on December 8 to retain.
7. GlobalPort def. Alaska on December 13 to retain.
8. SMC def. GlobalPort on December 20 to win the title.
9. Alaska def. SMC on December 27 to win the title.
10. TNT def. Alaska on January 4 to win the title.
11. Air21 def. TNT on January 8 to win the title.
12. SMC def. Air21 on January 11 to win the title.
13. SMC def. Petron on January 15 to retain.
14. SMC def. TNT on January 17 to retain.
15. SMC def. TNT on January 21 to retain.
16. TNT def. SMC on January 24 to win the title.
17. SMC def. TNT on January 26 to win the title.
18. SMC def. Ginebra in the semis to retain.
19. ROS def. SMC to unify the titles.

Ramon Fernandez belt

1. TNT def. Meralco on November 17 to win the title.
2. Petron def. TNT on November 23 to win the title.
3. Petron def. SMC on November 27 to retain.
4. Petron def. Barako Bull on December 4 to retain.
5. Petron def. Alaska on December 7 to retain.
6. Petron def. Air21 on December 11 to retain.
7. Petron def. Meralco on December 14 to retain.
8. ROS def. Petron on December 21 to win the title.
9. ROS def. Barako Bull on December 27 to retain.
10. ROS def. SMC on December 29 to retain.
11. ROS def. GlobalPort on January 5 to retain.
12. ROS def. TNT on January 11 to retain.
13. ROS def. Meralco on January 15 to retain.
14. ROS def. Air21 on January 18 to retain. 
15. ROS def. GlobalPort on January 22 to retain.
16. ROS def. Petron in the semis to retain.
17. ROS def. SMC to unify the titles.

Robert Jaworski belt

1. SMC def. ROS in the finals to win the unified title.

So, some observations. The Alvin Patrimonio belt has seen 8 title changes, with SMC, fittingly, being a 2x Alvin Patrimonio titlist. The Ramon Fernandez belt has been a "victim" of the awesome winning streaks of Rain or Shine, and, fittingly, Petron (also known as, and would later be known as San Miguel). Only TNT has the distinction of winning both belts, Barako, fittingly, is the only team left to win either title, and would you believe teams such as Air21 and GlobalPort can boast of winning the one of these belts at least once?

So as you can see, no John Cena vs Randy Orton unification matches yet, but we'll have a unification match once the playoffs comes around. The winners have to meet at some point, right? Unless of course ROS loses to already eliminated Air21, which means the Fernandez belt won't be defended again until next conference.  The Philippine Cup champion is sure to be the Patrimonio belt titleholders, since the current titleholders are in the playoffs already no matter what. If ROS defends their title, that means the unification match would be Game 1 of the Finals, as ROS is in the other side of the bracket from SMC.

So yes, the Finals could be not just for the Jun Bernardino Trophy, but for the Robert Jaworski unified PBA title.