Mighty NorCal
SHALL WE BEGIN?
Before the NWA was founded in 1948, there existed many regional professional wrestling promotions across North America (each promoting its own "World" champion). None of them, however, had backing or recognition outside of their own respective geographic base-areas.
The concept of the NWA was to consolidate the championships of these regional companies into one true world championship of pro wrestling, whose holder would be recognized worldwide. In 1948, Paul "Pinkie" George, a promoter from the Midwest, founded the original version of the National Wrestling Alliance with the backing of five other promoters (Al Haft, Tony Strecher, Harry Light, Orville Brown, and Sam Muchnick). This newly formed NWA Board of Directors wanted Brown to be the first-ever NWA World champion. During the reign of the second NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Lou Thesz (19491956), the title was further unified with several more previously-competing "World" titles, such as those recognized jointly by the National Wrestling Association and the American Wrestling Alliance (in Boston), plus another version promoted from the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium.
This legitimized the NWA's claim that its title was a "Unified World Title," and its lineage continues to this day.
The NWA members divided up North America, as well as Japan, into territories that each promoter would "own" and operate in. Having a territory meant that no other NWA member could promote wrestling in that area unless special arrangements were made between the promoters involved. If non-NWA promoters tried to promote their show in an NWA territory, then the other member groups were obliged to send stars to help force the intruder out. Reportedly, threats of violence or physical retaliation were used against any promoters (and/or talent) who disregarded the territory system. Like, no shit, one groups wrestlers would go to actually beat up another groups wrestlers. If any member territory broke the NWA's rules, it faced expulsion, and thus risked missing out on having nationally-known wrestlers appear on their local shows. For most promoters under the NWA umbrella, the benefits of membership were well worth the dues. Usually, the NWA President's territory was the main territory of the entire alliance.
Beyond the benefit of having other promotions to draw on in case of an intruder, each territory also received periodic guest visits from the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. The champion did not have a "home territory" as such, but instead traveled from territory to territory, defending the title against the top stars of each territory. A number of former NWA World Champions often remarked that their primary goal was to make the top stars of each territory "look good" and give crowds the impression that those "local heroes" had the potential of being the champion by almost winning the title. Many promoters would build up to the appearance of "The NWA World Heavyweight Champion" weeks or months in advance, making the local World title matches that much more special, and the shows they headlined more lucrative. In addition, each NWA member promotion usually produced a TV show that aired in their territory only, meaning that the local fans only saw the World champion when he came to their area, not year-round. It was not just the champion that would travel the territories; often, wrestlers from a different area would come into a territory (often the heels / "bad guys"), and run an angle or two with its top local faces ("good guys"). Also, if the local fans ever got tired of a wrestler, he could go to a whole new area and perform the same act for new audiences, who would think the act was brand-new. This storyline was often advanced in the area from which the competitor was departing as resulting from the outcome of an especially-highly promoted "loser leaves town" match.
Basically, imagine it like this....Imagine if the WWE champion visited NXT, ROH, TNA, or EVOLVE on an occasional basis, and had a knock-down-drag-out with their world champion.
Upon becoming the booker for Lou Thesz in 1950, Sam Muchnick, who was the head of the St. Louis Wrestling Club, became the new NWA President and maintained that position until 1960.
In the mid-1950s, serious disputes broke out within the NWA. There were antitrust problems with the government and there were a number of competing factions who wanted to replace Thesz as champion with different wrestlers, such as Verne Gagne. The antitrust case led to the infamous NWA Consent Decree of 1956 in U.S. v. National Wrestling Alliance. There were also disputes over the number of dates wrestled by the champion in various parts of the country.
The first break within the organization occurred in 1957, when Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn walked out of the August NWA meeting in St. Louis. Quinn had fallen out with Muchnick over a number of issues. Quinn was a partner in the St. Louis territory and disagreed with how it was being run, and was also angry that Muchnick had business dealings with rogue promoter (and Quinn rival) Jack Pfefer.
At the time Quinn walked out, a wrestler of his named Édouard Carpentier was involved in an angle where he and Lou Thesz were both being presented around the NWA as champion. This occurred after Carpentier had a disputed win over Thesz on June 14, 1957, and some of the NWA promoters considered it a legitimate title change, while others did not. The original idea was to build the idea of the "disputed" NWA title into a high profile rematch. When Quinn left the NWA, Muchnick announced that Carpentier had never been an official champion and had no claim on the title.
Afterward, Quinn saw the financial possibilities in the Carpentier situation and began to negotiate with factions within the NWA, as some territories such as Boston (AAC/Big Time Wrestling), Nebraska, and Los Angeles (NAWA/WWA) continued to recognize Carpentier as champion. He offered to have Carpentier lose a title match to their prospective champion thus giving them, if they decided to break away, a legitimate claim on the world title. The AAC recognized Killer Kowalski as world champion when he defeated Carpentier in Boston, and Nebraska recognized Verne Gagne as champion when he defeated Carpentier in Omaha (after winning the belt, Gagne tried for two years to work things out with the NWA, but finally left the organization in 1960 forming the American Wrestling Association. Gagne's win over Carpentier was used to legitimize the world championship status of the AWA title).
The NAWA/WWA recognized Freddie Blassie as world champion when he defeated Carpentier in 1961. The promotion then left the NWA officially and became Worldwide Wrestling Associates (WWA) until it returned to the NWA in 1968.
Muchnick's replacement at the NWA's helm in 1960 was Toronto's Frank Tunney; he in turn was succeeded by Fred Kohler, who was the main booker for the new NWA world champion, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers. Rogers had defeated NWA World Champion Pat O'Connor in 1961 in front of a then record crowd of over 36,000 fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago. October 1962 saw Rogers defeat Kowalski in a match promoted by Doc Karl Sarpolis, the NWA member promoter in Amarillo, Texas, and Sarpolis rose to the NWA presidency as a result. On January 24, 1963, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Lou Thesz defeated Rogers in a one-fall match and was declared champion.
After the event, however, Northeastern promoter Vincent J. McMahon refused to recognize the title change and withdrew his operation from the NWA, becoming the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE) with Rogers as the star performer. The WWWF recognized Rogers as its first world champion in April 1963.
Although both Gagne and McMahon promoted their own world champions, their promotions continued to have representatives on the NWA Board of Directors and regularly exchanged talent with NWA promotions.
In the 1980s, video tape trading and cable television paved the way for the eventual death of the NWA's inter-regional business model, as fans could now see for themselves the plot holes and inconsistencies between the different regional storylines.
Also, the presence of stars like Ric Flair on TV every week made their special appearances in each region less of a draw. Vincent K. McMahon, who had bought the WWWF from his father in 1982 and renamed it the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), used these gathering trends to turn his Northeastern territory into the first truly national promotion. To combat this threat, various NWA promoters, along with the AWA, attempted to co-promote shows under the Pro Wrestling USA banner. Internal disputes over power and money, however, caused this deal to eventually fall apart. The AWA ended up owning the group's ESPN timeslot, and used it to broadcast its own weekly shows.
In 1984, McMahon bought NWA member Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) and merged it into the WWF, with the WWF taking over GCW's long-time TV slot on TBS. Meanwhile, to hold off the threat of the WWF, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) decided to unify certain NWA territories and "go national" itself. Accordingly, Jim Crockett, Jr. began buying out some of the other NWA member promotions or, in some cases, allowed them to quietly die and just absorbed their rosters. Because of his acquisition spree, and because he failed to consistently match the WWF's ambitious marketing, TV production values, and merchandising, Crockett was facing bankruptcy by 1988.
TBS owner Ted Turner bought JCP and renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW) after the popular GCW TV show on TBS. With the backing of Turners money, it grew into a national promotion. With time, WCW became the main NWA territory with the JCP versions of the Tag-Team, United States, and Television Champions being recognized on a national scale.
Up until this point only the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship had had national recognition. WCW was still a member of the NWA, but with time felt that the NWA needed it more than it needed the backing of the NWA, especially since both WCW and the WWF toured the entire country instead of staying within a confined territory. To make matters even more confusing, WCW spent much of 1992 and 1993 recognizing and promoting both WCW-brand world champions and NWA-brand world champions. It was a hilarious goddamn mess. Seriously, watch their PPVs from 1992 through 1993 on the network.
Another promotion that withdrew from the NWA to operate on their own was Mid-South Sports. Originally owned by Leroy McGuirk (who booked the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion for the NWA), the promotion was sold to Bill Watts in 1979. Watts changed the name of the promotion to Mid-South Sports and declined to join the NWA. However, Watts did have a working agreement and exchanged talent with Jim Crockett Jr., allowing him to book the NWA world champion. In 1986, Watts renamed his promotion the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) in a bid to expand nationally, but was eventually bought out by JCP in March 1987, after going bankrupt.
In February 1986, promoter Fritz Von Erich withdrew World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) from the NWA in a bid to become a national promotion. He teamed with another former NWA member, the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA), and the AWA to try to compete with WCW and the WWF, but the arrangement soon fell apart due to inter-promotional politics. WCCW and the CWA later merged to form the United States Wrestling Association (USWA), which folded in 1997. Abroad, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) all seceded from the NWA in the mid-1980s, but not many American fans followed or even knew about these promotions. Joshi!
In January 1991, WCW officially began to recognize a WCW World champion, with Ric Flair, who had just defeated Sting to regain the NWA World heavyweight championship, as the first title holder. Ric Flair was simultaneously recognized as the World champion of both the NWA and WCW until he left WCW over a dispute with WCW president Jim Herd (with the actual title belt in his possession) to join the WWF. Upon leaving, Flair was immediately stripped of the WCW World title but continued to be recognized as the NWA World champion, causing the separation of the WCW and NWA titles. He was officially stripped of the NWA World title upon his arrival in the WWF a few months later. Afterwards, the NWA World title lay dormant for a year until New Japan Pro Wrestling hosted a tournament to crown a new champion. In September 1993, WCW withdrew completely from the NWA, and, despite Flair's possession of the physical belt, made no mention of the NWA name on air after the split. This is how the NWA belt technically came to WWE in the mid 2000s.
In August 1994, Philadelphia-based Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) withdrew their membership from the NWA in somewhat surprising fashion. As one of the most popular independent promotions of the early 1990s, they hosted a tournament to crown a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion after WCW had withdrawn from the NWA. The finals of the tournament saw Shane Douglas defeat 2 Cold Scorpio for the world title. Then, in a surprising turn, Douglas threw the title belt to the ground, claiming that he did not want to be the champion of a promotion that died "seven years before" (when JCP became WCW). Shane then grabbed the ECW Heavyweight Championship belt and declared himself the ECW World Champion. ECW owner Tod Gordon then renamed the company to Extreme Championship Wrestling and officially withdrew ECW from the NWA. This act all but obliterated any remaining prestige connected to the NWA World Championship and relegated it to an all but forgotten status among wrestling fans.
After the secession of ECW in 1994, the NWA wasn't what it once was. Through the mid to late 1990s, the all-but-forgotten organization was left with a small collection of independent promotions during the peak of the Monday Night Wars between WCW and the WWF.
Bit by bit, greed, power struggles, and the evolution of the business ate away at the primary governing body of professional wrestling.
Did the business simply evolve or eat itself? This is left to the reader to decide.
The concept of the NWA was to consolidate the championships of these regional companies into one true world championship of pro wrestling, whose holder would be recognized worldwide. In 1948, Paul "Pinkie" George, a promoter from the Midwest, founded the original version of the National Wrestling Alliance with the backing of five other promoters (Al Haft, Tony Strecher, Harry Light, Orville Brown, and Sam Muchnick). This newly formed NWA Board of Directors wanted Brown to be the first-ever NWA World champion. During the reign of the second NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Lou Thesz (19491956), the title was further unified with several more previously-competing "World" titles, such as those recognized jointly by the National Wrestling Association and the American Wrestling Alliance (in Boston), plus another version promoted from the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium.
This legitimized the NWA's claim that its title was a "Unified World Title," and its lineage continues to this day.
The NWA members divided up North America, as well as Japan, into territories that each promoter would "own" and operate in. Having a territory meant that no other NWA member could promote wrestling in that area unless special arrangements were made between the promoters involved. If non-NWA promoters tried to promote their show in an NWA territory, then the other member groups were obliged to send stars to help force the intruder out. Reportedly, threats of violence or physical retaliation were used against any promoters (and/or talent) who disregarded the territory system. Like, no shit, one groups wrestlers would go to actually beat up another groups wrestlers. If any member territory broke the NWA's rules, it faced expulsion, and thus risked missing out on having nationally-known wrestlers appear on their local shows. For most promoters under the NWA umbrella, the benefits of membership were well worth the dues. Usually, the NWA President's territory was the main territory of the entire alliance.
Beyond the benefit of having other promotions to draw on in case of an intruder, each territory also received periodic guest visits from the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. The champion did not have a "home territory" as such, but instead traveled from territory to territory, defending the title against the top stars of each territory. A number of former NWA World Champions often remarked that their primary goal was to make the top stars of each territory "look good" and give crowds the impression that those "local heroes" had the potential of being the champion by almost winning the title. Many promoters would build up to the appearance of "The NWA World Heavyweight Champion" weeks or months in advance, making the local World title matches that much more special, and the shows they headlined more lucrative. In addition, each NWA member promotion usually produced a TV show that aired in their territory only, meaning that the local fans only saw the World champion when he came to their area, not year-round. It was not just the champion that would travel the territories; often, wrestlers from a different area would come into a territory (often the heels / "bad guys"), and run an angle or two with its top local faces ("good guys"). Also, if the local fans ever got tired of a wrestler, he could go to a whole new area and perform the same act for new audiences, who would think the act was brand-new. This storyline was often advanced in the area from which the competitor was departing as resulting from the outcome of an especially-highly promoted "loser leaves town" match.
Basically, imagine it like this....Imagine if the WWE champion visited NXT, ROH, TNA, or EVOLVE on an occasional basis, and had a knock-down-drag-out with their world champion.
Upon becoming the booker for Lou Thesz in 1950, Sam Muchnick, who was the head of the St. Louis Wrestling Club, became the new NWA President and maintained that position until 1960.
In the mid-1950s, serious disputes broke out within the NWA. There were antitrust problems with the government and there were a number of competing factions who wanted to replace Thesz as champion with different wrestlers, such as Verne Gagne. The antitrust case led to the infamous NWA Consent Decree of 1956 in U.S. v. National Wrestling Alliance. There were also disputes over the number of dates wrestled by the champion in various parts of the country.
The first break within the organization occurred in 1957, when Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn walked out of the August NWA meeting in St. Louis. Quinn had fallen out with Muchnick over a number of issues. Quinn was a partner in the St. Louis territory and disagreed with how it was being run, and was also angry that Muchnick had business dealings with rogue promoter (and Quinn rival) Jack Pfefer.
At the time Quinn walked out, a wrestler of his named Édouard Carpentier was involved in an angle where he and Lou Thesz were both being presented around the NWA as champion. This occurred after Carpentier had a disputed win over Thesz on June 14, 1957, and some of the NWA promoters considered it a legitimate title change, while others did not. The original idea was to build the idea of the "disputed" NWA title into a high profile rematch. When Quinn left the NWA, Muchnick announced that Carpentier had never been an official champion and had no claim on the title.
Afterward, Quinn saw the financial possibilities in the Carpentier situation and began to negotiate with factions within the NWA, as some territories such as Boston (AAC/Big Time Wrestling), Nebraska, and Los Angeles (NAWA/WWA) continued to recognize Carpentier as champion. He offered to have Carpentier lose a title match to their prospective champion thus giving them, if they decided to break away, a legitimate claim on the world title. The AAC recognized Killer Kowalski as world champion when he defeated Carpentier in Boston, and Nebraska recognized Verne Gagne as champion when he defeated Carpentier in Omaha (after winning the belt, Gagne tried for two years to work things out with the NWA, but finally left the organization in 1960 forming the American Wrestling Association. Gagne's win over Carpentier was used to legitimize the world championship status of the AWA title).
The NAWA/WWA recognized Freddie Blassie as world champion when he defeated Carpentier in 1961. The promotion then left the NWA officially and became Worldwide Wrestling Associates (WWA) until it returned to the NWA in 1968.
Muchnick's replacement at the NWA's helm in 1960 was Toronto's Frank Tunney; he in turn was succeeded by Fred Kohler, who was the main booker for the new NWA world champion, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers. Rogers had defeated NWA World Champion Pat O'Connor in 1961 in front of a then record crowd of over 36,000 fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago. October 1962 saw Rogers defeat Kowalski in a match promoted by Doc Karl Sarpolis, the NWA member promoter in Amarillo, Texas, and Sarpolis rose to the NWA presidency as a result. On January 24, 1963, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Lou Thesz defeated Rogers in a one-fall match and was declared champion.
After the event, however, Northeastern promoter Vincent J. McMahon refused to recognize the title change and withdrew his operation from the NWA, becoming the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE) with Rogers as the star performer. The WWWF recognized Rogers as its first world champion in April 1963.
Although both Gagne and McMahon promoted their own world champions, their promotions continued to have representatives on the NWA Board of Directors and regularly exchanged talent with NWA promotions.
In the 1980s, video tape trading and cable television paved the way for the eventual death of the NWA's inter-regional business model, as fans could now see for themselves the plot holes and inconsistencies between the different regional storylines.
Also, the presence of stars like Ric Flair on TV every week made their special appearances in each region less of a draw. Vincent K. McMahon, who had bought the WWWF from his father in 1982 and renamed it the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), used these gathering trends to turn his Northeastern territory into the first truly national promotion. To combat this threat, various NWA promoters, along with the AWA, attempted to co-promote shows under the Pro Wrestling USA banner. Internal disputes over power and money, however, caused this deal to eventually fall apart. The AWA ended up owning the group's ESPN timeslot, and used it to broadcast its own weekly shows.
In 1984, McMahon bought NWA member Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) and merged it into the WWF, with the WWF taking over GCW's long-time TV slot on TBS. Meanwhile, to hold off the threat of the WWF, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) decided to unify certain NWA territories and "go national" itself. Accordingly, Jim Crockett, Jr. began buying out some of the other NWA member promotions or, in some cases, allowed them to quietly die and just absorbed their rosters. Because of his acquisition spree, and because he failed to consistently match the WWF's ambitious marketing, TV production values, and merchandising, Crockett was facing bankruptcy by 1988.
TBS owner Ted Turner bought JCP and renamed it World Championship Wrestling (WCW) after the popular GCW TV show on TBS. With the backing of Turners money, it grew into a national promotion. With time, WCW became the main NWA territory with the JCP versions of the Tag-Team, United States, and Television Champions being recognized on a national scale.
Up until this point only the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship had had national recognition. WCW was still a member of the NWA, but with time felt that the NWA needed it more than it needed the backing of the NWA, especially since both WCW and the WWF toured the entire country instead of staying within a confined territory. To make matters even more confusing, WCW spent much of 1992 and 1993 recognizing and promoting both WCW-brand world champions and NWA-brand world champions. It was a hilarious goddamn mess. Seriously, watch their PPVs from 1992 through 1993 on the network.
Another promotion that withdrew from the NWA to operate on their own was Mid-South Sports. Originally owned by Leroy McGuirk (who booked the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion for the NWA), the promotion was sold to Bill Watts in 1979. Watts changed the name of the promotion to Mid-South Sports and declined to join the NWA. However, Watts did have a working agreement and exchanged talent with Jim Crockett Jr., allowing him to book the NWA world champion. In 1986, Watts renamed his promotion the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) in a bid to expand nationally, but was eventually bought out by JCP in March 1987, after going bankrupt.
In February 1986, promoter Fritz Von Erich withdrew World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) from the NWA in a bid to become a national promotion. He teamed with another former NWA member, the Continental Wrestling Association (CWA), and the AWA to try to compete with WCW and the WWF, but the arrangement soon fell apart due to inter-promotional politics. WCCW and the CWA later merged to form the United States Wrestling Association (USWA), which folded in 1997. Abroad, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) all seceded from the NWA in the mid-1980s, but not many American fans followed or even knew about these promotions. Joshi!
In January 1991, WCW officially began to recognize a WCW World champion, with Ric Flair, who had just defeated Sting to regain the NWA World heavyweight championship, as the first title holder. Ric Flair was simultaneously recognized as the World champion of both the NWA and WCW until he left WCW over a dispute with WCW president Jim Herd (with the actual title belt in his possession) to join the WWF. Upon leaving, Flair was immediately stripped of the WCW World title but continued to be recognized as the NWA World champion, causing the separation of the WCW and NWA titles. He was officially stripped of the NWA World title upon his arrival in the WWF a few months later. Afterwards, the NWA World title lay dormant for a year until New Japan Pro Wrestling hosted a tournament to crown a new champion. In September 1993, WCW withdrew completely from the NWA, and, despite Flair's possession of the physical belt, made no mention of the NWA name on air after the split. This is how the NWA belt technically came to WWE in the mid 2000s.
In August 1994, Philadelphia-based Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) withdrew their membership from the NWA in somewhat surprising fashion. As one of the most popular independent promotions of the early 1990s, they hosted a tournament to crown a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion after WCW had withdrawn from the NWA. The finals of the tournament saw Shane Douglas defeat 2 Cold Scorpio for the world title. Then, in a surprising turn, Douglas threw the title belt to the ground, claiming that he did not want to be the champion of a promotion that died "seven years before" (when JCP became WCW). Shane then grabbed the ECW Heavyweight Championship belt and declared himself the ECW World Champion. ECW owner Tod Gordon then renamed the company to Extreme Championship Wrestling and officially withdrew ECW from the NWA. This act all but obliterated any remaining prestige connected to the NWA World Championship and relegated it to an all but forgotten status among wrestling fans.
After the secession of ECW in 1994, the NWA wasn't what it once was. Through the mid to late 1990s, the all-but-forgotten organization was left with a small collection of independent promotions during the peak of the Monday Night Wars between WCW and the WWF.
Bit by bit, greed, power struggles, and the evolution of the business ate away at the primary governing body of professional wrestling.
Did the business simply evolve or eat itself? This is left to the reader to decide.