National Wrestling Alliance
The National Wrestling Alliance is an American professional wrestling promotion and governing body owned by Billy Corgan and operated by its parent company Lightning One, Inc.
Founded in 1948, the NWA began as the governing body for a group of regional promotions, the heads of which made up the board of directors. The group operated a territory system which sanctioned their own company championships while recognizing a singular world champion who defended his title across all the territories, participated in talent exchanges, and collectively protected the territorial integrity of member promotions. Prior to the 1960s, it acted as the sole governing body for professional wrestling in the United States. It remained the largest and most influential body in wrestling until the mid-1980s by which time most of the original member promotions went out of business as a result of the World Wrestling Federation's national expansion. The WWF had been the NWA's Northeastern territory but left the alliance in 1983 ahead of the expansion.
In September 1993, the largest remaining member promotion, World Championship Wrestling, left the NWA. The NWA continued as a loose coalition of independent promotions, with NWA: Total Nonstop Action given exclusivity over its World Heavyweight and Tag Team championships from June 2002 to May 2007.
In August 2012, the NWA discontinued its memberships and started licensing its brand to wrestling promotions. In 2017, it was purchased by Billy Corgan through his Lightning One, Inc. company. By late 2019–2023, the NWA had transitioned into a stand-alone, singular promotion.
In October 2023, the NWA re-established its territory system, with Michael Hutter's NWA Exodus Pro Midwest being the first promotion sanctioned.
History
Formation
In 1948, Paul "Pinkie" George, a professional wrestling promoter from the U.S. Midwest, founded the National Wrestling Alliance with the backing of six other promoters: Al Haft, Tony Stecher, Harry Light, Orville Brown, Don Owen, and Sam Muchnick. The concept of the NWA was to consolidate the championships of these regional companies into one true world championship of professional wrestling, whose holder would be recognized worldwide. The newly formed NWA Board of Directors decided that Brown would become the first ever NWA World Heavyweight Champion.Governing body
1950s–1970s
In 1950, Sam Muchnick, one of the original promoters of the NWA and Lou Thesz's booker, was named the governing body's President, a position to which he was unanimously re-elected and held until 1960, making him one of the longest-tenured presidents in the organization's history. Following the advent of television, professional wrestling matches began to be aired nationally during this time, reaching a larger audience than ever before. Rising demand and national expansion made wrestling a much more lucrative form of entertainment than in decades previous. This era went on to be known as the "Golden Age" of professional wrestling. From 1948 to 1955, each of the three major television networks broadcast wrestling shows; the largest supporter being the DuMont Television Network.In 1956, allegations were made that the NWA was an illegal monopoly blocking competition. An investigation led by the US Department of Justice resulted in the NWA Consent Decree of 1956. Several promoters left the organization during this time, with some managing to find niches in the United States. In 1957, Montreal promoter Eddie Quinn walked out of the August NWA meeting in St. Louis, having fallen out with Muchnick over a number of issues. 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 world champion after Carpentier had a disputed win over Thesz on June 14, 1957.
As the 1950s came to a close, professional wrestling was losing television ratings, and soon TV stations dropped most wrestling shows from their lineups. The remaining televised wrestling promoters had small, local syndicated shows, which aired as late-night filler programming. Promoters started using localized television by purchasing airtime from rival territories, at the consequence of putting some of them out of business.
On January 24, 1963, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Lou Thesz defeated Buddy Rogers in a one-fall match and was declared NWA World Heavyweight Champion for the third and final time. However, after the event, Vincent J. McMahon and Toots Mondt of the Capital Wrestling Corporation refused to recognize the title change since Thesz was not a strong draw in their Northeastern territory. They then withdrew the CWC from the NWA. As a result, McMahon and Mondt formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation with 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 during this time.
Wrestling's popularity continued to decline in the 1970s. They changed their name from the World Wide Wrestling Federation to the World Wrestling Federation in 1979. At some point during the decade, Muchnick reportedly declared Atlanta, Georgia as the "leading wrestling city" for its "drawing capacity and near-capacity crowds at the City Auditorium or the Omni every Friday." While the American Wrestling Association and World Wide Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Federation both faltered during the 1970s, the NWA once again took over as the top promotion and gained huge dominance with their program, Georgia Championship Wrestling, which became the first nationally broadcast wrestling program on cable television through then-superstation TBS in 1979. They brought in Gordon Solie, dubbed "The Walter Cronkite of Professional Wrestling," from former NWA President Eddie Graham's Championship Wrestling from Florida territory to be lead commentator and host.
1980s–1993
Videotape trading and cable television paved the way for the decline of the NWA's inter-regional business model, as viewers could now see plot holes and inconsistencies between each territories' storylines. The presence of stars like Ric Flair on TV every week made their special appearances in each region less of a draw.The WWF left the NWA for good in 1983, as Vincent K. McMahon, who bought the WWF from his father in 1982, worked to get WWF programming on syndicated television all across the United States. That same year, Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA created its primary supercard, Starrcade, the first to be broadcast via closed-circuit networks and was regarded as their flagship event.
On Saturday, July 14, 1984, in what would become known as Black Saturday, McMahon bought NWA member Georgia Championship Wrestling and merged it into the WWF. The WWF took over GCW's TV slot on TBS, which had been home to GCW's World Championship Wrestling program for 12 years. This move proved disastrous as ratings plummeted, and the WWF ended up losing money on the deal. Then-NWA President Jim Crockett, Jr., the owner of JCP, bought the World Championship Wrestling program from McMahon for $1 million and returned NWA programming to TBS. By 1985, JCP had become the flagship territory of the NWA by acquiring more time slots on TBS and merging with other NWA territories in an attempt to compete with the WWF.
With the success of WrestleMania III in 1987, the WWF scheduled another pay-per-view, Survivor Series, on Thanksgiving night to compete directly with NWA's Starrcade event, and demanded exclusivity from cable providers on carriage of the event. As a result, Starrcade was moved to December the following year, with the show now held around Christmas Day beginning in 1988. The WWF then scheduled their first Royal Rumble event in January 1988 to counterprogram against the NWA's Bunkhouse Stampede. The NWA responded by creating Clash of the Champions on TBS to counterprogram WrestleMania IV.
By 1988, Jim Crockett Promotions was facing bankruptcy. On October 11, under the direction of owner Ted Turner, TBS bought the assets of JCP and renamed it World Championship Wrestling after the TV show of the same name. Originally incorporated by TBS as the Universal Wrestling Corporation, Turner promised fans that WCW would retain the athlete-oriented style of the NWA. The sale was completed on November 2, 1988, with a television taping of NWA World Championship Wrestling that very same date in WCW's hometown of Atlanta. By September 1993, WCW would withdraw completely from the NWA.
1993–2012
On August 27, 1994, NWA: Eastern Championship Wrestling held a World Title tournament for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Unbeknownst to any one, the event was staged for ECW's public withdrawal from the NWA, with tournament winner Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA title belt and instead picking up the ECW Heavyweight Championship belt, proclaiming himself to be the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. ECW founder Tod Gordon subsequently announced ECW's secession from the NWA, rechristening the promotion as Extreme Championship Wrestling.From 1994 to 1997 the most visible NWA promotion was Dennis Coralluzzo's NWA New Jersey/Championship Wrestling America, which lasted until 2000. NWA New Jersey worked with promotions such as IWA Japan and Steve Corino's North Carolina-based NWA 2000; the latter eventually merged with the New Jersey territory.
In 1998, the World Wrestling Federation reached an agreement to use the likeness of the NWA titles, branding, and its history, to create a storyline. It would be later claimed that WWE still owned the rights. Despite the NWA receiving international television publicity during the angle, it was considered a failure due to low viewer interests.
In June 2002, Jeff and Jerry Jarrett launched a new promotion called NWA: Total Nonstop Action. NWA:TNA was given creative control over the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team championships through an agreement with the NWA. This lasted until March 2007, when the NWA terminated its agreement with TNA. TNA lost control over the NWA World Heavyweight and World Tag Team championships by the morning of the 2007 Sacrifice pay-per-view event on May 13.
On September 17, 2010, KDOC-TV Los Angeles premiered NWA: Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.