page_title: Pat O'Connor (wrestler)
section_title: National Wrestling Alliance
hierarchical_section_title: Pat O'Connor (wrestler) / Professional wrestling career / National Wrestling Alliance
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of New Zealand wrestler Pat O'Connor
context_page_description: Patrick John "Pat" O'Connor, was a New Zealand professional wrestler. Regarded as one of the premier workers of his era, O'Connor held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Heavyweight Championship simultaneously, the latter of which he held for approximately two years. He was also the inaugural AWA World Heavyweight Champion. He is an overall two-time world champion.
context_section_description: On 19 March 1955, O'Connor won the NWA World Tag Team Championship (Chicago version) with tag team partner Roy McClarity, and held the title until February 1956. Later in the year, he worked for Maple Leaf Wrestling. In March, he won the NWA British Empire Heavyweight Championship (Toronto version), but lost it on 2 May 1957 to Gene Kiniski. That same month, O'Connor and Whipper Billy Watson won the NWA Canadian Open Tag Team Championship, but lost it to Gene Kiniski and Fritz Von Erich on 31 October of that year.
  O'Connor held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from 1959 to 1961. He first won the title on 9 January 1959 from Dick Hutton, who had held the title for thirteen months. O'Connor's reign was recognized by both the National Wrestling Alliance and the National Wrestling Association. The title change was part of the rivalry between bookers Sam Muchnick and Fred Kohler, the latter of whom did not want to waste any money announcing O'Connor as the new champion. Kohler also wanted O'Connor to pay him $10,000 to wrestle at shows in Chicago, while being paid less than champions usually earned. O'Connor was so angry at the suggestion that he walked out of their meeting and later told Muchnick not to book him for any events in Chicago. The men later worked out a deal of sorts, and beginning on 19 February 1960, O'Connor wrestled in Chicago against Bruno Sammartino and Johnny Valentine, among others.
  On 29 July at one of Fred Kohler's events, O'Connor defeated Yukon Eric at an event with an attendance of 30,275. During this time, television also became a factor in the burgeoning market for professional wrestling, and as a result, the demand to trade wrestlers, including O'Connor, throughout the territories, was eased due to Vincent McMahon's Capitol Wrestling. In December, he worked for McMahon in the Northeast. In March 1961, he was suspended for sixteen days when he missed a match in New York. On 30 June 1961, O'Connor dropped the title to Buddy Rogers in front of 38,622 fans at Comiskey Park, a North American professional wrestling attendance record that lasted until Toronto's The Big Event in 1986. The ticket revenue of $148,000 was a professional wrestling record for almost twenty years. The match, a two out of three falls match, was billed as the "Match of the Century". During the match, both men had gained a pinfall, when O'Connor missed a dropkick and suffered a legit groin injury on the ropes, after which Rogers pinned him to win the match.
caption: O'Connor as NWA World Heavyweight Champion
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