National Wrestling Alliance
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National Wrestling Alliance

ECWFlairfan wrote:National Wrestling Alliance

I'm going to say something that I've been thinking for a while: The NWA was never a promotion until very recently. It was a group of promotions that split up the area for thier own business gain. No one ever wen to the "NWA Show"- they went to the "JCP show," or the "WCCW show" or the "Stampede show" or the "CWF show" or the "Big Time Wrestling show."
THOSE were the promotions. The NWA was not a promotion.

Big Red Machine wrote:

ECWFlairfan wrote:National Wrestling Alliance

I'm going to say something that I've been thinking for a while: The NWA was never a promotion until very recently. It was a group of promotions that split up the area for thier own business gain. No one ever wen to the "NWA Show"- they went to the "JCP show," or the "WCCW show" or the "Stampede show" or the "CWF show" or the "Big Time Wrestling show."
THOSE were the promotions. The NWA was not a promotion.

it's confusing though, seeing as that they had so many titles that were named simply NWA World, World tag team, tv, tv tag team, jr. heaveyweight, U.S., etc. And the wrestlers always referred to it as a promotion. I always thought they looked at it sorta the same way WWE does with RAw and SD! now, and WWECW when they had it: the WWE is a promotion made up of several other promotions (though WWE uses the term "brands" bc their approach is different). All the promotions under the umbrella of the NWA help create the NWA promotion

The National Wrestling Alliance was not a promotion itself, but a group of promotions who worked together and shared titles, hence "Alliance."

yourcrapsweak wrote:The National Wrestling Alliance was not a promotion itself, but a group of promotions who worked together and shared titles, hence "Alliance."

so then, WWE isn't a promotion? They share titles but have two different rosters.

badnewzxl wrote:

yourcrapsweak wrote:The National Wrestling Alliance was not a promotion itself, but a group of promotions who worked together and shared titles, hence "Alliance."

so then, WWE isn't a promotion? They share titles but have two different rosters.

i think the difference would be whether there is a promoter for each brand, or in the case of NWA, each smaller territory.

cero2k wrote:

badnewzxl wrote:

yourcrapsweak wrote:The National Wrestling Alliance was not a promotion itself, but a group of promotions who worked together and shared titles, hence "Alliance."

so then, WWE isn't a promotion? They share titles but have two different rosters.

i think the difference would be whether there is a promoter for each brand, or in the case of NWA, each smaller territory.

The difference is that, in the case of WWE, the divide is kayfabe. In the case of the NWA, it wasn't.

There's a difference between a brand and a promotion. A brand is simply a division in the roster, not an entirely different promotion. A brand is kayfabe, and in non-kayfabe still owned, run (and sometimes booked) by the same person. In the NWA's case, each territory had an entirely different promotion, owned, run, and booked by a different person.

WWE is one company, owned by one person. NWA was a group of companies, each owned by different people. NWA is only a term to represent the alliance of the companies in sharing common champions.

badnewzxl wrote:

Big Red Machine wrote: I'm going to say something that I've been thinking for a while: The NWA was never a promotion until very recently. It was a group of promotions that split up the area for thier own business gain. No one ever wen to the "NWA Show"- they went to the "JCP show," or the "WCCW show" or the "Stampede show" or the "CWF show" or the "Big Time Wrestling show."
THOSE were the promotions. The NWA was not a promotion.

it's confusing though, seeing as that they had so many titles that were named simply NWA World, World tag team, tv, tv tag team, jr. heaveyweight, U.S., etc. And the wrestlers always referred to it as a promotion. I always thought they looked at it sorta the same way WWE does with RAw and SD! now, and WWECW when they had it: the WWE is a promotion made up of several other promotions (though WWE uses the term "brands" bc their approach is different). All the promotions under the umbrella of the NWA help create the NWA promotion

That is a very interesting way of looking at it that I hadn't considered.
In terms of the titles, a whole bunch of different promotions claimed to have the "NWA World Tag Team Titles," and multiple different "NWA US TItles." The only belt that was exclusive was the NWA World Title. The fact that thier was on'y one "NWA World Title" is really the thing that supports Badnewz' argument the most. Normally, when you have one promotion recognizing another's titles (like ROH and FIP used to do, and like ROH does with SHIMMER), each promotion believes that their top belt is superior... in the case of the NWA, this was not true, as everyone agreed that the NWA World Title was superior to their own local top title. Hmmm... I'm really sure what to think about this.

wait. There were other NWA World Tag Team Champs when say the Midnight Express were NWA World Tag Team Champs? then why is there one history of those belts just as there is for the NWA World title? I mean, when Tully and Arn were tag champs, they were THE NWA World Tag Team champs, right?

badnewzxl wrote:wait. There were other NWA World Tag Team Champs when say the Midnight Express were NWA World Tag Team Champs? then why is there one history of those belts just as there is for the NWA World title? I mean, when Tully and Arn were tag champs, they were THE NWA World Tag Team champs, right?

That probably has to do with a "controversial" finish. There's a few defenses by Lou Thesz that were hotly contested for the NWA World Title, where that specific territory hosting the defense recognized the challenger as having won the match. This was likely done to setup a rematch.

badnewzxl wrote:wait. There were other NWA World Tag Team Champs when say the Midnight Express were NWA World Tag Team Champs? then why is there one history of those belts just as there is for the NWA World title? I mean, when Tully and Arn were tag champs, they were THE NWA World Tag Team champs, right?

Because those were the Mid-Atlantic versions of the belts. When Crockett bought everyone else up, didn't use their titles. His became the ones that WCW used, and were the only "NWA World Tag Team TItles" left when WCW split, so that is what the NWA has been using ever since.

Big Red Machine wrote:

badnewzxl wrote:wait. There were other NWA World Tag Team Champs when say the Midnight Express were NWA World Tag Team Champs? then why is there one history of those belts just as there is for the NWA World title? I mean, when Tully and Arn were tag champs, they were THE NWA World Tag Team champs, right?

Because those were the Mid-Atlantic versions of the belts. When Crockett bought everyone else up, didn't use their titles. His became the ones that WCW used, and were the only "NWA World Tag Team TItles" left when WCW split, so that is what the NWA has been using ever since.

Oh; thanx for clearing that up for me. Me and Mr. hongry hughes have been wondering why the NWA Tag Title history was so much shorter in the PWI Almanac than we expected.

I think I was misunderstanding your point; When I think of the NWA, I immediately think of the eighties on and the NWA titles being defended in AWA and Mid-Atlantic rings