When did the NWA lose it's cred?

[IrishCanadian25]

For decades, saying you were an NWA Champion was the pro-wrestling equivalent of being President of the United States. You ran the wrestling world. You were close to godliness. People came from all around to see you do your job.

And it all ended. For 99% of the wrestling fans whose name isn't "Bill Behrens" (who, BTW, is a strong addition to the WZ site), the NWA died a LONG TIME AGO. My question is - when?

In 1991, Ric Flair was recognized as both the WCW and the NWA World Champion after a win over Sting. Despite WCW splitting off from the NWA, Flair was a simultaneous champion. When he ditched WCW for WWF, however, the NWA stripped him of the title, though he kept the belt since he'd paid for it. It took a year before the NWA Title was re-awarded, at a tournament in New Japan Pro. NWA also went bankrupt in 1991.

In 1993, Eastern Championship Wrestling became the next to cecede from the NWA. The now infamous Shane Douglas spit-shoot on the NWA, creating the transition to Paul Heyman's "Extreme Championship Wrestling," also left the NWA humiliated, battered, and beaten.

Finally, in 2004, TNA separated from the NWA, having originally been an NWA organization. Through an agreement with TNA, however, the World and Tag Championships remained NWA Titles, with the X Division and Knockout Belts being the only non-NWA titles in TNA. When the booking team of TNA started creating title changes without approval of the NWA Board of Directors, however, an agreement was made to separate early, forcing TNA to create their own belts in 2007, and again leaving the NWA Championless. Currently, "Blue Demon Jr." is the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. And nobody cares.

1991, 1993, 2004, or 2007 - when did the NWA officially die?

 

[Slyfox696]

It died the minute Hulkamania was born. They were all dead...they just didn't know it yet. - The Crow.


Anyways, once Hulkamania was born, the NWA made their bed. Instead of jumping on board with what was obviously the way the business was changing, they wanted to stick to the same things they had been doing for decades, and they allowed their bureaucratic nonsense to get in the way of producing superstars.

The NWA couldn't work together, each promotion was only in it for themselves, they forced younger wrestlers to "pay their dues", and they worked an outdated style of wrestling. Because they didn't band together, their production values were terrible, they didn't have enough capital to sell their product...and Hulk Hogan was taking the WWF global.

They died the minute Hulkamania was born. They died when they refused to accept what wrestling was to become. And they died when they took two of wrestling's most promising superstars and constantly refused to give them that mega push they deserved, all in the name of "paying dues". I am, of course, talking about Sting and Luger.

 

[klunderbunker]

I'll say different and go with Crockett selling to Turner. THe NWA had been in big trouble for a long time before that, but Crockett still believed in the territories and stuff like that. However, once it went National, it died. The mystique of seeing the World Champion twice a year was gone as you could watch for free on tv. Turner changed everything with TBS and putting the show on cable. The company wasn't Mid-Atlantic or the NWA anymore: It was WCW. WCW became the competition to WWF. Even the title got it's name changed. I believe it was called the WCW International Title? The title had just died because of a reluctnace to change. Now it's dead, period.

 

[Showtime]

In 1991. The NWA just wasn't the same anymore. Vince McMahon steamrolled over the competition and his man Hulk Hogan was suddenly viewed at the real world champion, not the NWA champion Ric Flair. The NWA title took the first of many embarrassing phases in its lifetime when Flair showed up in the WWF with the NWA belt. Going bankrupt that year didn't help the NWA either. Suddenly the NWA, which once stood proudly on its own, now had to feed off independent and small-time wrestling promotions, like ECW and TNA, to survive. They were like the fucking bad guy from Harry Potter who had to feed off of and inhabit other bodies to survive. Please excuse the lame Harry Potter reference, but that's just what the NWA has now become, a ghost of wresting past that inhabits whatever second or third rate wrestling promotion it can find. The NWA died way back in 1991, but just like other wrestling greats who are way past their prime, it just can't walk away and die from the business just yet, and that's why it's still around. One day I'm sure the NWA will disappear all together and we'll sit back and look fondly at and remember the good champions like Buddy Rogers, Harley Race and Ric Flair, instead of the Blue Demon Jr's or whoever gets to hold the belt now.

 

[Lee]

I'm going to go with a different time and that would be the decline of the territory system.

With this, it had to be national rather than having the regional stoylines and having regional champs. Out of this the failure of Pro Wrestling USA and various promotions joining either WWF or Jim Crockett promotions.

Shane Douglas blames the death of NWA on JCP getting sold to Turner, and I would agree to an extent with this being a cause of the 'death' but it came at a bad time with promotions such as WCCW trying to get a national promotion.

To strip your golden boy Flair and to then have someone throw the title down on the floor and say you're ECW champion not NWA just put the nails in the coffin.

RIP

 

[Dead Kennedy]

My vote's for 1993, when Extreme/Eastern Championship Wrestling left them. Who the hell ever heard of NWA since then who wasn't specifically interested in the promotion? They could have embraced the wave of the future and kept the ECW thing going, but no. They decided to stick to the old ways and die slowly but surely. Losing Ric Flair a couple of years earlier didn't help either, but I feel this is the dying blow.

 

[Slyfox696]

My vote's for 1993, when Extreme/Eastern Championship Wrestling left them. Who the hell ever heard of NWA since then who wasn't specifically interested in the promotion? They could have embraced the wave of the future and kept the ECW thing going, but no. They decided to stick to the old ways and die slowly but surely. Losing Ric Flair a couple of years earlier didn't help either, but I feel this is the dying blow.

No offense, but this is wrong. Nobody knew about ECW either. The NWA was already dead regardless of ECW breaking away. You might would have a case of WCW breaking away, but ECW? Nah, not a chance.

Everybody watches the "Rise and Fall" DVD about ECW, and seems to think that ECW breaking away from the NWA and Shane Douglas throwing the title down was some big moment. It wasn't. It was insignificant. Let's not lose sight of the truly important in favor of WWE propaganda.

 

[klunderbunker]

Douglas throwing the title down didn't hurt the NWA as much as it helped ECW. The NWA title still had a bit of notority just because of it's heritage, but that was it. It was no where near the top world titles, but it did exactly what ECW needed it for: it spit in the face of the tradition. The NWA was long dead by that point and ECW just put more dirt on top of it.

 

[ROHDude]

In 1991, Ric Flair was recognized as both the WCW and the NWA World Champion after a win over Sting. Despite WCW splitting off from the NWA, Flair was a simultaneous champion. When he ditched WCW for WWF, however, the NWA stripped him of the title, though he kept the belt since he'd paid for it. It took a year before the NWA Title was re-awarded, at a tournament in New Japan Pro. NWA also went bankrupt in 1991.

This is when the NWA lost it's cred. WCW was on TV getting national attention, meanwhile the NWA now was just a bunch of independent wrestling promotions that mainstream America didn't care about because they were all watching the WWF and WCW. Besides a few die hards no one cared about the NWA at this point.

 

[2012isbs]

It died aruond the time of TNA getting their own titles. NWA had been TNA's World title and Tag Title so it was still a big thing when TNA got their own titles NWA had lost their name being mentioned constantly on T.V.

No one putting you in the public eye means no one knows about you and when to watch you live. If no one knows about you then wrestlers don't make money and if wrestler's don't make money they leave if all your wrestlers leave then you have no one to wrestle for you.

IMO NWA didn't screw NWA TNA screwed NWA.

 

[Afro-Ameri-Spawn]

I am amazed at how wrong everyone here is. It goes to show that none of you know the NWA, like I know the NWA. Because, as you see, the NWA was a friend of mine and I was there with it in the hospital during the tough times when it thought it was forsurely done and then on the tragic day when it closed it's eyes and finally saw it's credibility slp away for the last time.

Now I won't bore you with the whole story of it's birth, greatest joys, accomplishments, and heartaches when it's kids would turn on it. Instead, I will focus on those last days that before the abysmal end. More specifically, two incident where it's health turned and what finished it off completely.

1. The turn.
Ah, I remember so fondly he NWA during this time. It has shrugged off a bitter split from yet another Jilted lover in Ted Turner and had even survived The Nature Boy Ric Flair dogging their long time relationship in the public forum of WWF television. I mean, don't get me wrong, the NWA was very hurt by the actions of Flair, but it collected itself, healed, and quietly went on behind the scenes, still staying well established in the field while courting a seemingly genuinely nice chubby little gentleman by the name of Paul Heyman. Of course, NWA would soon find out that Heyman only wanted to get at it's goodies like everybody else.

I apologize for having ranted on about NWA's dirty little secrets, but it goes to show how desperate for love the NWA was at the time. And that is why, I think, the NWA pulled a bold and yet stupid move to strengthen it's credibility and hang out with cool kids again. This move was crowning UFC original Dan Severn as it's heavyweight champion. Sure, it looked like a sound decision as Dan Severn was proving to be quite the badass in the newly organized UFC as well as in the up and coming sport of Mixed Martial Arts competition, but was it really? Yes, I will admit that the image of a UFC winner holding your title skews the lines between the fantasy sport of wrestling and reality in general and by god it just looks sexy.

But there was a major problem in making Severn the champion. He was never around to defend the title on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, the only times that he really defended it, between UFC appearances, was during the mandatory minimum matches every 30 days, if even that regularly. And when he came back to take up full time wrestling was after he had his ass handed to him by genuine UFC fighters and not the ham and eggers who he had gained his reputation facing. They were eventually forced to strip Severn of the title and just went on a depressing form of life support. But that was not it's last breath or act of desperation by a long shot.

2. The Pitiful End to a Great Franchise.
Now, whole NWA was lavishing showering Dan Severn with it's love, hoping to get something in return, as old love interest came knocking and wanted to take the NWA out to dinner and dancing. This old love was the WWF. Oh yes, one of the entities that hurt NWA very deeply wanted to finger it and get it all hot and bothered. And let me tell you, nothing got the old NWA wetter than the prospect of having a go around with Vince McMahon. And so it happened.

One night on RAW, an always stylish gentleman by the name of James E. Cornette came out and announced that the NWA was invading the WWF! Oh the NWA was all giddy with excitement, until people asked "who he hell are these guys?" Oh this broke her poor heart. And not only that, but people who were unfamiliar with the NWA's legacy accused Vince McMahon of trying to rip off the rival WCW's NWO angle with over the hill wrestlers such as The Rock and Roll Express, Barry Windham, and NWA's champion Dan Severn.

Furthermore, Vince McMahon, who loved to play rough, was using his own cheese during the angle where he recreated the famous Midnight Express with two jokers who he had nothing better for in "Bombastic" Bob Holly and "Bodacious" Bart Gunn. The NWA didn't need cheese, it needed serious respectability. But McMahon, being te control freak that he is didn't want the poor lil NWA to do anything except lay there and take it. He didn't care if the NWA wasn't satisfied, as long as he got his own rocks off. The NWA was heartbroken and terminal and pretty much Vincent Kennedy McMahon wiped his dick on her face and walked away with a grin on his face. Hell, he even gave more insult to injury by signing away Dan Severn and using his to give credibility to his own UFC star, Ken Shamrock.

And there she lay, the poor NWA. She had been finger fucked, sodomized, and violated in ways she could not imagine. Sure, she wandered into the ECW debacle later on and was left even more devastated, but her credibility was dead before that point. She just didn't know it.

 

[Slyfox696]

So, because my opinion isn't the same as yours, it's "wrong"? Jesus, start living outside the box. Nobody can be wrong in an opinion post. Stop contradicting my opinion at every goddamn turn, okay? It may not be the one best fitting to your ideas and preconceptions but it's my own opinion like it or not.

No, because your post was foolish is what makes it wrong.

Just how exactly can the NWA lose its cred because a no-name promotion that people didn't care about, outside of 30 miles surrounding Philadelphia, broke away from them? That doesn't make much sense.

It's not about MY ideas and preconceptions, it's about ridiculous ideas and preconceptions, and yours was ridiculous. There have been a lot of posts here that I disagree with, but at least have validity, which is why I haven't responded to them. Yours, however, really had no validity, which is why I responded.

I mean, please explain to me how a no-name promotion that no one cared about had anything to do with NWA losing credibility.

 

[RVDgurl]

The NWA died the night Extreme Championship Wrestling was born. Shane Douglas conducted the greatest shoot ever and put the NWA belt to rest. There were alot of things that happened along the way to get to that point- the creation of WCW, the domination of the WWE but the NWA belt still held some dignity until Shane Douglas was picked to hold it.

 

[Pimpin]

I'm gonna say it died when the WWE went mainstream. The WWE took a big risk by going out by themselves into the mainstream world & it paid off & instead of the NWA following suit they just decided to keep the territorial thing that they did. Ric Flair, ECW & TNA didn't originally kill it. No they just buried it even more & spit in it's face at the same time.

 

[eXtremely-Priceless2K9]

well I think it was when TNA split from them IMO I mean look at it
1990's Ric flair leaves This was a HUGE blow to thier Prestige and knocked them from the no1 spot for good.
90's ECW left this didn't matter to me NWA still held the NO2 spot in America.
2004 was the day the music died . TNA split and became No2 after a while
I mean TNA leaving made a big iMPACT! (see what i did there? heheh)
TNA was a new breath of fresh air in the wrestling scene so them leaving made TNA seem like

....
The Promotion that time forgot
....

It was still stuck in the 80's
and look at their champ
Blue demon jr
my my my how origional and exciting and hes not that great a wrestler either.