NWA Iowa

National Wrestling Alliance of Iowa , NWA Iowa for short , is the name of a former US wrestling promotion that was based in Waterloo , Iowa . Promoters were Paul "Pinkie" George and his brother Andrew .

The NWA Iowa was a founding member of the National Wrestling Alliance and was continued by George as a local promotion next to the now superordinate NWA until March 1959. In March 1959, under pressure from the NWA, operations had to be stopped and the doctorate closed.

history

History / joining the National Wrestling Association

The history of the promotion began in 1902. On February 2, 1907 in Fairfield , a tournament for the newly created Iowa Heavyweight Championship held and Shane Hollister won .

Approx. In 1930 wrestler Paul "Pinkie" George took over the promotion. George now became the local promoter and booker for the Iowa Territory. George joined under the banner of the National Wrestling Association of Iowa (Iowa NWA) of the National Wrestling Association and became also the regional representative of the State Athletics Commission of Iowa .

He now split the NWA Iowa into two sub-organizations . The result was the NWA Iowa (Des Moines) , which was headed by Paul George, and the NWA Iowa (Waterloo) , which was under the control of Andrew George. However, Paul George quickly clashed with Tom Packs , who led the National Wrestling Association as authoritarian as a syndicate and did not tolerate any contradiction from the NWA's booking committee.

To counteract this, the territory of the American Wrestling Association was added to the NWA in 1935 . Their promoter Paul Browser has now been added as the second booker of the NWA Packs. Although packs and browsers were supposed to lead the National Wrestling Association as equal partners, the latter could not prevail against packs. After all, Browser was only responsible for booking in Massachusetts , Minnesota and the Northeast. The entire Midwest, including Iowa, remained under the control of Tom Packs.

Introduction of the "Alliance" banner

In 1940, the authoritarian leadership style of Tom Packs was openly criticized by some promoters in the NWA . For example from Orville Brown , who operated in the so-called "Central States", more precisely in Columbus , Ohio , and teamed up with some other promoters such as George Simpson , his mentor. In neighboring Kansas, for example, it was organized under the new National Wrestling Alliance banner for the first time .

This coalition, which had its seat in Kansas City , was organized among others by Orville Brown and Al Haft under the banner of the "Alliance" -NWA. After an event by Brown in Iowa in 1940 under the "Alliance" banner, Paul George gradually began using it in Iowa.

National Wrestling Alliance of Iowa

In January 1941, Paul George officially reorganized his promotion into the National Wrestling Alliance of Iowa banner, and Wichita- based promoters Max Bauman , Norris Stauffer , Johnny Apt , Billy Sandow and Perry Bash organized under the National Wrestling banner from February 24, 1941 Alliance of Kansas (NWA Kansas) .

With the name Alliance in the banner, Brown, George, Haft and all the others wanted to indicate that this new NWA was a federation, a loose association of equal partners and thus openly questioned Packs' leadership style in the NWA. Thanks to a clever marketing policy, the “Alliance” -NWA was able to develop a certain name for itself in public, especially since it was now regularly represented in the local press. She appeared as an affiliate of the Midwest Wrestling Association and was referred to as the Midwest Wrestling Alliance .

On September 1, 1943, George Paul took an open attack against Tom Packs when he appeared in his home territory of Missouri, more precisely at a tournament in St. Louis . Paul declared Missouri to be the area of influence of the NWA Iowa. Tom Packs' promotion, the Northwest Association , which operated in Missouri as NWA St. Louis , was already in financial difficulties. Gradually, the "Alliance" replaced the National Wrestling Association in the Midwest.

Re-organizing the National Wrestling Association

In the summer of 1948 Paul George invited six prominent promoters of the so-called Major Promotions to Waterloo, Iowa.

Since this meeting, which took place on July 18, 1948, was about the National Wrestling Association and, above all, about the question of its reorganization, Tom Packs was also invited. But the latter was not interested in it and, meanwhile heavily in debt, sold his territory for around US $ 360,000 to a consortium that included wrestler Lou Thesz .

Thesz had no say in the eyes of the promoters, as the involvement of the NWA in this exchange of ideas was only addressed to Packs. Nevertheless, the present representatives of the National Wrestling Association were tolerated as listeners and common storylines were worked out for both NWAs, which were ultimately aimed at a merger of the two.

Foundation of the National Wrestling Alliance

All present promoters agreed that the NWA should be reformed. But there were also differences: Basically Paul George just wanted the renewed NWA to be a central booking bureau for the common wrestlers and that the NWA should only operate regionally. With this demand George was quite isolated. The invited promoters, especially Sam Muchnick with his financially strong doctorate, called for the national and global expansion of the NWA.

But all those present agreed that this new NWA would now run under the banner of the National Wrestling Alliance and that there could only be one NWA Heavyweight Champion within the NWA , whose title was to be upgraded to the rank of World Title .

In 1948 there was a paradox in the American Midwest that two NWA titles were held and defended in one region. A basic program and a second meeting in September were also agreed at the July meeting. This took place on September 25, 1948 in Minneapolis and was in the territory of the promoter Paul Browsers and his American Wrestling Association . Paul George has now been appointed President by the promoters present and the basic program adopted in July was expanded and the principle of territoriality for promoters cemented.

Result of the July and September meeting

In order to circumvent the strict US antitrust laws, it was decided in Waterloo, Iowa that the NWA sub-organizations would only have their events under the banner of the National Wrestling Alliance, since the NWA was now an association of equal partners.

In the member territories, the NWA regions , no official NWA representations were opened, but the major doctorate located there performed the function of an NWA office .

These NWA offices also served to monitor the agreed territorial principle, since all NWA tournaments in a region had to be approved by the responsible NWA office.

Members of the Board of Directors dated September 25, 1948

Since the second NWA meeting, the Board of Directors comprised the following people:

literature

Tim Hornbaker: National Wrestling Alliance. The Untold Story of the Monopoly That Strangled Pro Wrestling , ECW Press Toronto, Canada (2007), ISBN 978-1-55022-741-3