NWA World's Heavyweight Championship
The NWA World's Heavyweight Championship, also stylized as the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship, is a men's professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned and promoted by the National Wrestling Alliance, an American professional wrestling promotion.
Although formally established in 1948, its lineage has been traditionally traced back to the first World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship, which traces its lineage to the title first awarded to George Hackenschmidt in 1904.
The title began as a governing body's world championship and has been competed for in multiple major promotions around the world, including the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, All Japan Pro Wrestling, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, Ring of Honor, Combat Zone Wrestling and the now-defunct American Wrestling Association, Jim Crockett Promotions, Eastern Championship Wrestling, World Class Championship Wrestling, and many other defunct wrestling promotions.
In October 2017, the NWA governing body was purchased by Billy Corgan and gradually evolved into a stand alone wrestling promotion with the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship as its premier title.
History
Territory era (1948–1985)
With many territorial promotions appearing across the United States, the NWA was formed in 1948 as a professional wrestling governing body. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship was created that same year. Like franchises, these territories had the option of NWA membership. Member promotions had to recognize the NWA World Heavyweight Champion as world champion while retaining the ability to promote their own top championships. Every year, the NWA World Heavyweight Champion would travel to each territory and defend the title against the territories' top contender or champion. The purpose of the NWA world champion was to make the top wrestlers of each territory look good, while still upholding the credibility of the world title. The NWA's board of directors, composed mostly of territory owners, decided when the title changed hands via a vote.File:Champion Lou Thesz and Manager Ed Lewis - Sports Facts - 21 April 1953 Minneapolis Armory Wrestling Program.jpg|thumb|left|Longest reigning and six-time champion, by retrospective lineage traced back to 1904, Lou Thesz pictured with manager Ed Lewis in the 1950s
By the late 1950s, however, the system began to break down. As Lou Thesz continued to hold the title, other popular wrestlers such as Verne Gagne became frustrated over the lack of change. There were also disputes over the number of appearances the champion would make in different regions.
On June 14, 1957, in Chicago, Thesz defended the world title against Canadian wrestler Édouard Carpentier in a two out of three falls match. Thesz and Carpentier split the first two falls. In the third fall, Thesz was disqualified by referee Ed Whalen who raised Carpentier's hand in victory. The NWA later voided the title change based on the disqualification. Thesz defeated Carpentier by disqualification in a Montreal rematch on July 24. It had been planned that the NWA would present Thesz and Carpentier as rival champions in different cities following a similar pattern to the successful title dispute matches between Thesz and Leo Nomellini in 1955. Carpentier would also be able to make appearances in the U.S. as champion while Thesz was on an overseas tour. However, as a result of various disputes within the NWA, Carpentier's manager, wrestling promoter Eddie Quinn, left the organization in August making Carpentier unavailable to the NWA. The organization dealt with the situation by announcing 71 days after Carpentier's win in Chicago that it did not recognize Carpentier's win and had never recognized it. Quinn started promoting Carpentier as the true NWA world champion based on the match with Thesz. In 1958, Quinn started shopping Carpentier around to promoters interested in leaving the NWA. A victory over Carpentier could give a local champion a credible claim to the world championship of wrestling.
The Boston NWA affiliate known as the Atlantic Athletic Commission arranged a match between Killer Kowalski and Carpentier on May 3, 1958. Kowalski's victory created what was after known as the ACC World Heavyweight Championship and later Boston's Big Time Wrestling Heavyweight Championship.
Verne Gagne, who had been trying to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion for some time, defeated Carpentier in Omaha, Nebraska, on August 9, 1958. This was recognized as a title change by NWA affiliate promotions in the state – these promotions would later evolve into the American Wrestling Association in 1960. This disputed Nebraska version of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship was later known simply as the Omaha version of the World Heavyweight Championship. The title was unified with the AWA World Heavyweight Championship on September 7, 1963.
The "Crown" version of the [|championship belt] debuted in 1959.
The North American Wrestling Alliance in Los Angeles recognized Carpentier as NWA champion in July 1959 as part of gradually splitting from the NWA. On June 12, 1961, Carpentier lost a match to Freddie Blassie which created the basis for the Los Angeles version of the WWA World Heavyweight Championship. The title ceased to exist when the WWA returned to the NWA on October 1, 1968.
The World Wide Wrestling Federation, which later evolved into today's WWE, was the major wrestling promotion in the northeast United States in the early 1960s. Vincent J. McMahon's Capitol Wrestling Corporation, the precursor to the WWWF, seceded from the NWA for a variety of reasons including the selection of the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and the number of dates wrestled by the champion in the promotion. Ostensibly, the dispute was over Buddy Rogers losing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz in one fall instead of a best-of-three; the format in which NWA World Heavyweight Championship matches were traditionally decided at the time. This one fall match was sanctioned by NWA promoters, despite objections from CWC executives, who held majority control over the NWA board of directors at the time. Following Lou Thesz's World Heavyweight Championship win, CWC seceded from the NWA and became the World Wide Wrestling Federation. Rogers was then recognized as the first WWWF World Heavyweight Champion.
The "Ten Pounds of Gold" version of the championship belt debuted on July 20, 1973, having been first presented to Harley Race by then-NWA President Sam Muchnick.
When Jim Crockett Promotions wrestler Ric Flair won the NWA World title in 1981, he traveled to other NWA territories and defended the belt. He would drop the belt and regain it, as the NWA board of directors decided. On more than one occasion, however, Flair lost and regained the belt without the official sanctioning of the NWA. In most cases, these switches continue to be ignored by the NWA. However, since 2015, the NWA has occasionally recognized the unauthorized Flair-Race switch that had occurred in March 20, 1984 in New Zealand.
Jim Crockett Promotions (1985–1988)
By early 1985, Jim Crockett Promotions controlled many NWA territories and limited championship matches to performers under contract with JCP thus making the title exclusive to the promotion.The "Big Gold Belt" version of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt debuted on February 14, 1986, at Battle of the Belts II, an event co-promoted by Championship Wrestling from Florida and JCP. At the event, NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair successfully defended the title against Barry Windham.
It was during this time that JCP made a failed bid to go national and almost filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to compete with the WWF. Turner Broadcasting purchased the company, because it had a high rated program airing on the WTBS cable station. Completing the deal in November 1988, Turner began changing the company to World Championship Wrestling, which maintained a partnership with the NWA and continued promoting the NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair.
World Championship Wrestling (1988–1993)
WCW stayed in the NWA, but Turner slowly phased out the NWA name. The NWA organization existed only on paper at this point; on television, it was portrayed that, by early 1991, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship had become the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.Image:Dusty Rhodes as NWA Champion, circa 1979 to 1981.jpg|left|thumb|Dusty Rhodes is a 3-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion
Due to a falling out with WCW Executive Vice-President Jim Herd, WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair was fired from WCW on July 1, 1991, while still being recognized as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Flair took the NWA belt with him because WCW and Herd had not returned the $25,000 bond Flair had paid on the belt. After Flair's departure from WCW, the company had made a new, separate WCW World title belt. A match was held for the vacated WCW World Heavyweight Championship within two weeks of the departure, but no mention was made of the NWA title. Flair was stripped of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship by NWA's board of directors shortly after he signed with the WWF in September 1991; an NWA board had to be reconstituted, as most members had gone out of business or been bought out by JCP/WCW. Flair displayed the Big Gold Belt on WWF television, calling himself the "Real World's Heavyweight Champion". After winning the WWF Championship, Flair's "Real World's Heavyweight Champion" belt was dropped. WCW, which had subsequently filed a lawsuit against the WWF to prevent them from using the Big Gold Belt on television, eventually dropped the action because the belt was returned to WCW in July 1992.
In August 1992, the NWA board authorized WCW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling to hold a tournament to decide a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion using the Big Gold Belt, now returned to WCW by the WWF. Turner's company still maintained its WCW World Championship, thus having two World Heavyweight titles present in the same promotion. The tournament was won by Japanese wrestler Masahiro Chono. From 1992 to 1993, the NWA belt was defended in Japan and on WCW television. Flair returned to WCW and regained the NWA belt from Barry Windham in July 1993; that same year, WCW recognized the Ric Flair-Tatsumi Fujinami NWA title change from March 21, 1991. Disputes between WCW management and the NWA board began emerging in the summer of 1993 over a variety of issues, primarily a storyline by WCW that would have had the NWA title switch to Rick Rude.
On September 1, 1993, WCW withdrew their membership from the NWA but kept the NWA title belt which they owned. A court battle decided that WCW could not continue to use the letters "NWA" to describe or promote the belt, but ruled that WCW did possess a right to the physical Big Gold Belt and its historical lineage per a signed agreement between the previous NWA President Seiji Sakaguchi and WCW. Per this court ruling, the title belt dropped the recognition as being the NWA World Heavyweight title but continued to be billed as the World Heavyweight Championship by WCW. Soon after, the Big Gold Belt was defended without any company affiliation, even being referred to simply as the Big Gold Belt for a short time, until it became known as the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship. This title was recognized as the championship of a fictitious entity known as "WCW International", which served as a replacement for the NWA Board, until the title was unified with the main WCW title on June 23, 1994.