NWA World Heavyweight Championship

The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight Championship is the primary professional wrestling title in the NWA. Its lineage has been traced from the first "World Heavyweight Championship," which traces its lineage to Georg Hackenschmidt's 1905 title and Frank Gotch's 1908 version.

With many "territories" appearing across the United States, the NWA was formed in 1948 as an overall governing wrestling body. Like franchises, these territories had the option of NWA membership. The promotion owners had to recognize the NWA heavyweight and tag team champions as world champions while retaining their own ownership and top champion. The title is currently used in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).

Early controversy
Every year, the NWA World Champion would travel to each territory and defend the title against the territories' top contender or champion. The purpose of the world champion was to make the top contender look good and still hold the title. The NWA Board of Directors, comprised mostly of territory owners, decided when the title changed hands via a vote. The former champion, however, usually regained the title days to weeks later. With controversy of Lou Thesz not dropping the title, Verne Gagne protested by withdrawing his American Wrestling Association from the NWA and declaring the AWA Championship a world title.

Gagne's withdrawal was a forerunner to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (which eventually became the World Wrestling Federation, and, later, World Wrestling Entertainment) and Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW) pulling out years later. The WWWF left the NWA over "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers losing the NWA World title to Lou Thesz in one fall instead of a best-of-three &mdash; the format in which NWA World title matches were decided at the time. Vincent J. McMahon's territory refused to recognize Thesz as World champion and left the NWA. McMahon continued to recognize Rogers as champion and named Rogers as WWWF World Champion after "winning" a fictitious tournament for the new World Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, though the formation of the WWWF was brokered through the NWA itself.

1980s
When Ric Flair won the NWA World title in 1981, the NWA enjoyed more popularity than before. Despite Vincent K. McMahon's WWF gaining steam and growing in 1984, Flair's reign kept the "World" in the NWA World title. Like the champions before, 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.

As the 1980s drew to a close, Jim Crockett Promotions (the main NWA territory) made a failed bid to go national and almost filed for bankruptcy. Spending money it did not have, it failed keeping up with the WWF. Ted Turner purchased the company, because it was a high rated program on his WTBS cable station. Completing the deal in 1989, Turner began changing the company to his WCW vision. 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 the NWA World Heavyweight Championship simply became the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

1990s
Due to a falling out with WCW Executive Vice-President Jim Herd, Flair was fired from WCW in 1991 while still being recognized as the champion. Flair took the NWA belt with him, because it was his belt (It was a design JCP had ordered for him in 1985, when he started displaying it), as well the fact that WCW and Herd had the $25,000 bond Flair had paid on it. (See The $25,000 deposit below) 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 the NWA Board of Directors shortly after he signed with the WWF in September 1991; a board had been 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 Heavyweight Champion." After winning the WWF Championship, the "Real World Heavyweight Champion" angle was dropped. WCW, which had subsequently filed a lawsuit against the WWF to prevent them from using the "Big Gold Belt" on television, eventually reached an agreement to buy the "Big Gold Belt" back. Ric Flair was paid his $25,000 initial deposit for the NWA title, plus interest, totalling $38,000. The belt was then returned to WCW.

WCW withdraws
During Flair's departure from WCW, the company had made a new WCW World title belt. After a year hiatus, the NWA board authorized WCW and New Japan to hold a tournament for the vacant title. The NWA held a tournament to decide a new NWA World Champion using the Big Gold Belt, now owned by WCW. 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 belt from Barry Windham. Disputes between WCW management and the NWA Board reached the breaking point in the summer of 1993 over a variety of issues, not the least of which was a storyline by WCW to have the title switched to Rick Rude.

In September of 1993, WCW withdrew their membership from the NWA but kept the 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 it did possess a right to the physical title belt and its historical lineage by a goodwill agreement between prior boards of directors and the WCW (and its prior incarnation Jim Crockett Promotions). Per this 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 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 was actually a parody of the NWA Board itself and was meant as a jab at the cabal of promoters who had tried to dictate terms to WCW.

Despite losing WCW as its flagship program, the NWA picked up new members and remained in existence as a legal entity. After nearly a year, the organization scheduled a tournament to crown a new champion, and brought back the "Ten Pounds of Gold"&mdash;the belt from the '70s to early '80s&mdash;to represent this new champion. It should be noted that this new title had no historical connection to the original lineage of the title. None of the membership in the heyday of the organization prior to 1991 was still associated with the alliance, all of them either going out of business or leaving the alliance. By this time, the NWA was stripped of world title status by Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine, considered the gold standard of world title status.

The beginning of Extreme Championship Wrestling
NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) became the most televised wrestling show still within the NWA, hence the vacated title and the tournament for it was held at the ECW Arena in 1994 and won by ECW Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas. (At the time, the ECW title was considered a regional title) Shane Douglas looked as if he was proud to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion until he turned and threw the belt down and started slandering the NWA, then picked up the ECW Heavyweight title and proclaimed himself ECW World Heavyweight Champion. Douglas was still recognized as NWA Champion until ECW withdrew from the NWA, where he was officially stripped of the NWA title. In the 2005 ECW documentary Forever Hardcore, Shane Douglas claimed that part of the reason that he decided to toss down the NWA World belt was because of derogatory and slanderous comments that then NWA head Dennis Coralluzzo had allegedly been making regarding Shane's professionalism.

The Dan Severn era
Despite this blow to the organization, the NWA held another tournament in late 1994; in Cherry Hill Township, New Jersey hosted by promoter Dennis Coralluzzo. This tournament was won by Chris Candido and the title soon was recognized and defended in such independent promotions as Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the United States Wrestling Association. Holding the belt for a few months, he dropped the belt to Ultimate Fighting Championship's (UFC) Dan "The Beast" Severn.

Severn held the belt continuously for four years, but only made sporadic defenses due to his UFC commitments. Although Severn had attempted to go the "traveling champion" route done by former champions Thesz, Dory Funk Jr., Race, and Terry Funk, the competition level was relatively minor due to the lack of strong territories. In the late 90's, Severn became part of Cornette's NWA faction in the WWF. Trying to get back in the national spotlight, the NWA made a deal with Vince McMahon Jr. to appear on WWF television. Part of Cornette's NWA stable was NWA North American Champion Jeff Jarrett, winning the vacant title by defeating Barry Windham on Monday Night RAW. The NWA's deal with the WWF never accomplished its intended purpose and McMahon ended it. The NWA belt went back to being defended on the independent circuit and remaining NWA territories.

In 1999 Severn lost the title to former Olympic judoka Naoya Ogawa, and the title picture became slightly more competitive. The champions nonetheless remained wrestlers from independents, regardless of whether they were from North America (Severn, Mike Rapada, Sabu), Asia (Ogawa, Shinya Hashimoto), or Europe (Gary Steele). The situation continued until early 2002, when Severn was able to regain the title from Hashimoto in Japan.

2000s
In 2002, Jeff and Jerry Jarrett formed NWA-TNA. The Jarretts worked out a licensing deal with the NWA and affiliated their promotion with the NWA World Heavyweight and Tag Team titles. While working out a cable deal, the Jarretts put NWA-TNA on weekly pay-per-view. Because of a conflicting booking with a mixed martial arts card, the NWA champion at the time, Dan Severn, was unable to appear on the inaugural TNA card, and he was stripped of the NWA belt. A unique type of battle royal was held to fill the title's vacancy. Ken Shamrock won the match and was declared the new NWA World Heavyweight Champion.

The TNA era
TNA withdrew from the NWA in 2004 but secured the rights to use the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Tag Team Championship until 2014. TNA can use the titles any way they see fit while not incurring the rule of the NWA Board of Directors. While these titles are still defended in several NWA territories and feds, they are currently exclusive to TNA. Because of TNA's success on Spike TV, Pro Wrestling Illustrated (as of the August 2006 issue) re-instated "world title status" back to both Heavyweight and Tag Team belts.

The $25,000 deposit
During the glory days of the NWA, the NWA World Heavyweight Champion was required to place a US$25,000 security deposit to the NWA treasurer to ensure that the champion did not leave the NWA with the belt. When the champion lost the title, the deposit was returned, plus any interest that has accumulated over time. There were a few exceptions where Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes declined their deposit whenever they dropped the title because they knew that they were going to get the belt back in the future. Another was following Flair's firing from WCW in June 1991 when the company refused to return the deposit and Flair kept the belt before eventually bought back by WCW. (See 1990s above)

Current champion
The current NWA World Heavyweight Champion is Christian Cage, who is in his second reign. He defeated Sting and Abyss in a Three Way Elimination match at Final Resolution on January 14, 2007 in Orlando, Florida.