NWA World Welterweight Championship The NWA World Welterweight Championship is a professional wrestling championship governed by the National Wrestling Alliance ( NWA ) . For the majority of its existence , the title has been promoted by Mexican promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre ( CMLL ) , where it was known as the " Campeonato Mundial Welter de NWA " . It has also been used by New Japan Pro Wrestling , and was part of its J - Crown Championship . After the J - Crown was discontinued the title remained in Japan being promoted by the Toryumon promotion up until 2007 where it returned to Mexico and CMLL . As with the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Middleweight Championship , it is not currently recognized by the National Wrestling Alliance , having ceased to acknowledge it when CMLL withdrew from the NWA in the late - 1980s . Being a professional wrestling championship , it is not won legitimately ; it is instead won via a scripted ending to matches . The official definition of the Welterweight weight class in Mexico is between 150 lbs ( 70 kg ) and 170 lbs ( 78 kg ) , but is not always strictly enforced . The championship predates the creation of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948 and was initually just known as the " World Welterweight Championship " , promoted by Empressa Mexicana de Lucha Libre ( EMLL ) . When EMLL joined the National Wrestling Alliance in 1952 , the title was given the prefix " NWA " . In the late 1980s EMLL withdrew from the NWA , changing their name to Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre at the same time , to create a clean break from their past NWA association . CMLL retained three NWA - labeled titles , the Welterweight championship , the NWA World Middleweight Championship and the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship , despite none of them being officially recognized by the NWA . In 1992 the then - champion Misterioso left CMLL to join the newly formed Asistencia Asesoría y Administración , vacating the championship . CMLL had recently created their own Welterweight Title and thus decided not to use the NWA championship for the time being . It would be three years before the NWA Welterweight title was used again , when Negro Casas won the title . A few months later Casas lost the title to Shinjiro Ohtani in the first round of the J - Crown Unification tournament . The title would switch hands in each round of the tournament as Último Dragón won it the next night and then Great Sasuke , who won the tournament . In 1996 and 1997 the title was defended as part of the J - Crown until the J - Crown was broken up into the original individual titles and vacated by the end of 1997 . Just over a year later the championship resurfaced in Toryumon where Dragon Kid won it . For the next several years the title became the exclusive property of Toryumon , being defended mainly in Japan and occasionally in Torymon ' s Mexican branch . It was not until November 27 , 2007 that the title returned to its country of origin as La Sombra won the title from Hajime Ohara and brought it back to CMLL . In March 2010 Blue Demon , Jr . , the president of NWA Mexico , sent letters to CMLL , telling them to stop promoting the NWA - branded championships since they were not part of the NWA . NWA Mexico has previously tried to reclaim the three NWA - branded championships promoted by CMLL , but was ignored by CMLL . The promotion did not directly respond to the latest claim either ; the NWA Welterweight Champion , Mephisto , commented , simply stating that the titles belonged to CMLL . On August 12 , 2010 , CMLL debuted the new NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship and returned the old belt to NWA . El Santo became the first Welterweight Champion on March 15 , 1946 by winning an eight man tournament . Cassandro is the current NWA World Welterweight champion having defeated Dr . Cerebro for the vacant title on June 25 , 2011 . This is Cassandro ' s first run with the title ; he is the 57th overall champion and the 44th person to hold the Championship . Karloff Lagarde holds the record for both the most title reigns , with three , and the longest individual title reign , 2 , 742 days . Two men have held the title for just one day : Shinjiro Otani and Último Dragón . Title history . ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 0 % | # ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 23 % | Wrestler ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 0 % | Reign ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 15 % | Date ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 5 % | Days < br > held ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 13 % | Location ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 15 % | Event ! style = " background : # e3e3e3 ; " width = 40 % class = " unsortable " | Notes