From: rusbasan@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan)
Subject: NWA/WCW World Heavyweight Championship
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 22:51:11 GMT


I was looking over the list of NWA World Heavyweight Champions that
was published a while back.  It was posted by Hisaharu Tanabe, and
Gary Will followed up to the post with some corrections, the most
important one being that the list was pretty much a fabrication for
the champs before 1948 or so.  Three different titles, none of them
having anything to do with the National Wrestling Alliance formed
in 1948, were combined in the 1950's, according to Gary.

The list, and Gary's correction, brings to mind several questions:

1) What was the purpose of the "reconstruction" of the list in the
   50's?  Was it just to deceive, to add prestige by making people
   think that the title had a longer history than it did?  Or was
   it a genuine attempt to have a chain of officially recognized
   champions, similar to the way boxings magazines will only recognize
   one of the three champions in each weight class as the true
   world champion?  Did the NWA say they were recognizing these
   men as their past champions, or did they actually try to make
   people think that the NWA title had been passed from man to
   man as the list indicated?

2) Gary stated that Orville Brown was the first champ of the NWA
   in 1948, but he is completely gone from the revised list.  Why
   did they do this?  Could someone fill in the first few dates of
   the real NWA title history?  Currently it goes like this:

Longson       21 Nov 1947    St.Louis
Thesz         20 Jun 1948    Indianapolis
Billy Watson  15 Mar 1956    Toronto
Thesz         9 Nov 1956     St.Louis
Dick Hutton   14 Nov 1957    Toronto

    Obviously, Longson is out of the picture, right?  Then Orville
    Brown comes in as the first champ, and I believe Thesz was just
    handed the title when Brown was injured, right?  Was this in fact
    on the date indicated?  Or did they change Thesz's reign when
    Brown was erased from history?  And is everything after Thesz's
    1948 reign accurate?

3)  In March 1984, Race and Flair swapped the title twice in Singapore
    and New Zealand.  Flair returned to North America as he had left,
    as the World Champ.  As Gary pointed out, no mention was made of
    this to the North American fans.  Here's my question:  Aside from
    the people who were at those matches, was this title change mentioned
    *anywhere*?  For example, were these title changes common (and
    official NWA) knowledge in Japan?

    If the NWA never acknowledged these changes, then I think they should
    probably be as ignored as other matches like the Rocker's WWF title
    victory.  Am I correct in stating that when Race and Flair bragged
    about having X title wins, these title changes were never included
    in the count?

4)  This comes toward the end of the list:

Flair			11 Jan 1991	E.Rutherford
Tatsumi Fujinami	21 Mar 1991	Tokyo
Flair			19 May 1991	St.Petersberg

    I remember seeing Flair defending the title at an American PPV
    against Tatsumi Fujinami, and they mentioned and showed footage
    from a "controversial" NWA title match in Japan where Fujinami
    was awarded the title, but then the decision was changed.  Was
    this PPV the St. Pete match?  If so, what's going on here in the
    list?  Is Hisaharu saying that the victory in Japan was a legit
    title change, and on the PPV Flair was challenging for the title
    instead of defending it, and with his victory he won, rather than
    successfully defended, the title?  Or is the St. Pete match *not*
    the PPV match I saw?  Am I just not aware of this title change?
    In other words, was it recognized in North America?

    If Hisaharu is saying that Flair lost and regained the title despite
    what the US fans were told, what is his justification?  Was it
    presented that way in Japan?

5)  The list ends with the title being declared vacant before Chono
    won it, but it doesn't have the date.  Does anyone know when
    Flair quit?  If not, does anyone know when Luger won the title
    and approximately how much time had passed since Flair's leaving?
    I believe it was just a few weeks or so.

6)  Is the end of this list also not revisionist?  When Flair quit,
    I was told there actually was a separate NWA, and they had always
    recognized the same champ as WCW.  I was also told that they
    continued to recognize Flair as champ for some time after he
    entered the WWF, but then, under WCW pressure, they recognized
    Luger as champ, thus reunifying the NWA and WCW titles -- of
    course, the NWA's and WCW's dates for the end of Flair's reign
    and the start of Luger's reign would be different.

    (No, as anyone who has read my past posts would know, I am not
    a mark, and neither was the person who gave me this information.
    There really is (was?) an NWA that recognized champions, and it
    was (is?) distinct from WCW.  The NWA wanted control of their
    name, which is why Turner's promotion started calling the titles
    WCW instead of NWA, for an example of how they were separate.)
   
    When WCW decided to bring back the NWA name, they mentioned
    Flair as the last NWA champ, but I believe this was actually
    a revision of history, since the NWA had apparently buckled
    and recognized Luger as champ, and maybe they were still
    recognizing the WCW champ as the NWA champ into Sting's reign.
    Does anyone know?

7)  How does everyone feel about the NWA/WCW situation?  I personally
    agree with PWI.  The currect WCW title traces back to the NWA
    title of 1948.  The currect NWA title is something completely
    different.  From what I've heard, WCW now owns the NWA name,
    and they brought back the title.  They do not call it a world
    title, and it seems like it's mostly going to be a Japanese title.
    It's a gimmick -- more like Thesz awarding one of his old belts
    in matches than a true rebirth of the NWA.  It's a new title
    using an old belt, not a genuine split between the recognized
    NWA and WCW champs.

    It's not like the WCW title started with Luger.  It had been
    called the WCW title for years before that.  When Flair quit,
    he quit as the WCW champion, so you can't really make a case
    that the titles split at that point.  Surely the NWA wouldn't
    have waited almost a year to crown a new champ!  The new belt
    is not a matter of two organizations who had previously recognized
    one champ going their separate ways.  It's a WCW gimmick.

Well, thanks for reading this, and thanks for any help I get.  I'm
trying to complete the posted list, and I'm trying to find other
lists.  If anyone has a list of the other NWA/WCW titles (like
US and tag team) or if they have a list of WWF champions with
*dates*, please email them to me.  I'll post them if there's interest.


-- 
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  / Bob Rusbasan                  |     Dance to the tension       \
 /  rusbasan@expert.cc.purdue.edu |      of a world on edge         \
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