NWA World Tag Team Championship
The NWA World Tag Team Championship is a professional wrestling world tag team championship created by the National Wrestling Alliance. From 1948 to 1982, the NWA allowed member promotions to create their own territorial version of the "NWA World Tag Team Championship" without oversight from the board of directors. The first of these NWA World Tag Team Championships was created in 1950 in the San Francisco territory, which while billed as a "World" title was essentially restricted to the specific NWA territory. In 1957 as many as 13 versions of the NWA World Tag Team Championship were confirmed to be in existence. In 1982 Big Time Wrestling, based in Los Angeles, closed and abandoned their version of the championship. The following year, the World Wrestling Federation, an NWA member at the time and which had its own World Tag Team Championship, split from the NWA in acrimony. This meant that only the Jim Crockett Promotions' NWA World Tag Team Championship was active within the NWA, but still being controlled by JCP, not the NWA board of directors. In 1991 that championship was renamed the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
In 1992 the NWA board of directors decided to sanction one world-level NWA World Tag Team Championship, working with WCW to hold a tournament to determine the inaugural officially recognized, NWA World Tag Team Championship. In 1993, the NWA and WCW severed their relationship and the NWA took with it the tag team championship. The NWA would briefly allow the World Wrestling Federation to control the championship in 1998 but by 1999 that collaboration ended. In 2002 the NWA gave control of the NWA World Tag Team Championship to the newly formed NWA Total Nonstop Action promotion. TNA's control of the championship ended in 2007, with TNA creating the TNA World Tag Team Championship as a result. In subsequent years the championship has been defended on various continents including a period of time where it was held by several teams working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
The Skullcrushers held the championship for 777 days, making them the longest reigning champions in the history of the NWA board-recognized championship. Three teams have held the championship for just one day: David Flair and Dan Factor, Glacier and Jason Sugarman, and The Heatseekers.
History
Territory years (1950–1982)
In 1948 six professional wrestling promoters in the United States joined to form the National Wrestling Alliance as a governing body for a number of different wrestling promotions, which then became known as the NWA territories. The promoters, formed a board of directors and decided that they would endorse two wrestling championships that all territories would recognize, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship. Those two championships were controlled by the board, who would meet to vote on who should be given the championship next.At the time tag team wrestling, or matches where teams of two wrestlers would fight each other, was not popular across all territories, so the board of directors did not sanction a specific NWA World Tag Team Championship. This meant that each territory was free to create their own "World Tag Team Championship" as they saw fit and use it within their territory without board approval. Tag team wrestling first rose to popularity on the west coast of the United States, which led to the Los Angeles territory, promoted by Johnny Doyle, creating the first NWA World Tag Team Championship of the territory era when the Dusek Riot Squad were billed as the champions on a July 14, 1949, show in Long Beach. The following year the San Francisco territory followed suit and created their local version of the championship when Ray Eckert and Hard Boiled Haggerty defeated the team of Ron Etchison and Larry Moquin on April 4, 1950. A month later the Midwest Wrestling Association territory, covering Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, created their own version of the championship on May 26, 1950, as the Dusek Riot Squad won that championship.
In 1953 the Chicago-based promoter Fred Kohler introduced the team of Lord James Blears and Lord Lathol Laytham as the local NWA World Tag Team champions, billing them as having won the championship in a different NWA territory before they began working for Kohler. Historic records do not indicate that Blears and Laytham had actually won the championship elsewhere. From mid-1953 the championship became the main tag team championship of the Illinois-Wisconsin territory. A few months later promoter Ed Don George brought in the Chicago champions to his Ohio-Upstate New York territory and used them to bring an air of legitimacy to his own version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, allowing local wrestlers Bill Melby and Billy Darnell to defeat Blears and Martino Angelo.
In 1954 the Canadian Athletic Promotion, based in Montreal, used the NWA World Tag Team Championship name as well, but by the end of the year they had abandoned it. Also in 1954, Georgia Championship Wrestling introduced the Georgia version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, using the Chicago version to start the Georgia branch.
The following year NWA founders Paul "Pinkie" George and Max Clayton introduced an Iowa-Nebraska version, with the champions splitting their time between George's Iowa territory and Clayton's Nebraska territory. The promoters billed Joe Tangaroa and Guy Brunetti as the local champions, recognizing the championship of the Chicago version up until September 1955, then splitting off in to their own lineage. Also in 1955, the first of two Texas-based NWA World Tag Team Championships was created by the Amarillo, Texas-based Big Time Wrestling, owned by Doc Sarpolis and Dory Funk. They followed in the footsteps of other NWA territories by having the Chicago champions travel to their territory to lose a version of the championship to start the local version. In this case Neilson worked regularly in the territory, while Lisowski left after only a brief stay. The promoters chose to have Rip Rogers replace Lisowski for the Amarillo version of the champions. Another version was introduced around 1955–1956 in the Idaho-Utah territory based out of Salt Lake City. The Indianapolis territory soon introduced another local version by recognizing the lineage of the Chicago version, before splitting it off into a separate entity in 1957 when Nicoli and Boris Volkoff won the championship.
Three additional versions of the championship were introduced in 1957, the first of which was in Minneapolis, where the Kalmikoffs won a tournament to become champions. The second new championship was also the second Texas-based championship as the eastern Texas-based Houston-Dallas territory introduced Verne Gagne and Wilbur Snyder as their local champions. The third championship introduced in 1957 was used by Nick Gulas' NWA Mid-America promotion when Gulas introduced the Corsicans as champions when they made their debut for NWA Mid-America.
No new championships were introduced in 1958 or 1959, but with all versions being active but that of Montreal, thirteen versions were being defended across the United States in 1957. In 1959/1960 the unity of the NWA was strained as several promotions broke away from the NWA, choosing to join with Minnesota promoter Verne Gagne to form the American Wrestling Association. This meant that the Minneapolis, Chicago, Iowa-Nebraska, Indianapolis and Idaho-Utah versions of the championship were all abandoned, replaced by the AWA World Tag Team Championship that was recognized in all of those territories.
While the NWA lost some territories with the exodus to the AWA, others were added and additional NWA World Tag Team Championships were still being introduced. In 1961 Championship Wrestling from Florida created the Florida version of the championship as the Von Brauners became regular performers in Florida. In 1964 the Detroit-based Big Time Wrestling announced that Chris and John Tolos had won the newly created Detroit version of the championship on February 16, 1965. In 1966 NWA All-Star Wrestling introduced their own version, but by mid-1968 the promotion discontinued using them in favor of the NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship.
In 1968 the Amarillo territory stopped using their version of the world championship, favoring the NWA Western States Tag Team Championship instead. Only months later the Eastern Texas version was abandoned as well, once more in favor of a more regional championship name, the NWA Texas Tag Team Championship. Georgia Championship Wrestling followed the trend in 1969, with the NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship. By 1970 the Ohio-Upstate New York territory left the NWA and became known as the National Wrestling Federation, in the process they rebranded the tag team championship as it became known as the NWF World Tag Team Championship. No territory created a new world tag team championship until 1975 where the NWA Mid-Atlantic promotion in the Carolinas introduced the Mid-Atlantic version, the first new championship in nine years. This championship would later also be recognized by Georgia Championship Wrestling. In 1977 the NWA Mid-America territory was split in two as Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett took over a large part of the territory when they created the Continental Wrestling Association. After the territory split, NWA Mid-America abandoned their version of the world tag team championship.
The WWF was a member of the NWA between 1972 and 1983, thus the WWF World Tag Team championship, although never referred to as such, was effectively another version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship during this period.
In 1979 the San Francisco version of the championship was abandoned, while Hollywood Wrestling reintroduced the Los Angeles version of the championship shortly afterwards. The same year the Central States version was abandoned, in favor of the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship. The Detroit territory closed its doors in 1980, ending their version of the championship. In 1981 World Class Championship Wrestling briefly brought back the east Texas version of the championship, but later abandoned it in favor of the NWA Americas Tag Team Championship.
;Territorial versions of the NWA World Tag Team Championship
| Created | Ended | Territory | Fate | |
| 1949 | 1957 | Los Angeles | Switched to the San Francisco version 1958-1979 | |
| 1950 | 1979 | San Francisco | Abandoned | |
| 1950 | 1979 | Central States | Replaced with the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship | |
| 1953 | 1960 | Chicago | Replaced with the AWA World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1953 | 1970 | Ohio-New York | Replaced with the NWF World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1954 | 1954 | Montreal | Abandoned | |
| 1954 | 1969 | Georgia | Abandoned | |
| 1955 | 1959 | Iowa-Nebraska | Replaced with the AWA World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1956 | 1960 | Indianapolis | Replaced with the AWA World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1956 | 1959 | Idaho-Utah | Replaced with the AWA World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1955 | 1968 | West Texas | Replaced with the NWA Western States Tag Team Championship | |
| 1957 | 1961 | Northeast | Abandoned | |
| 1957 | 1960 | Minneapolis | Replaced with the AWA World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1957 | 1982 | East Texas | Replaced with the NWA American Tag Team Championship | |
| 1957 | 1977 | Mid-America | Promotion closed | |
| 1961 | 1969 | Florida | Replaced with the NWA Florida Tag Team Championship | |
| 1964 | 1980 | Detroit | Promotion closed | |
| 1966 | 1967 | Vancouver | Replaced with the NWA Canadian Tag Team Championship | |
| 1975 | 1991 | Mid Atlantic | Became the WCW World Tag Team Championship | |
| 1979 | 1982 | Los Angeles | Promotion closed |