National Wrestling Association
| National Wrestling Association | |
|---|---|
| shape | Federation |
| Establishment date | August 23, 1929 Reactivated in 1960 |
| Territories | National |
| owner | National Wrestling Association, LCC |
| management | Nick Kerasiotis |
| Branch | Pro wrestling |
| Further information | |
| Closed since | October 1980 |
National Wrestling Association (NWA) was the name of a US wrestling umbrella organization ( English Wrestling Federation ), which was officially dissolved in October 1980. Responsible promoter was Nick Kerasiotis .
history
The promotion was established on August 23, 1929 as the wrestling division of the National Boxing Association . In October 1930, the promotion of the NBA became independent.
Numerous wrestling organizers of the National Wrestling Association have now joined, for example Iowa-based Paul George . When he joined, he reorganized his doctorate in the NWA Iowa . The most influential promoter, however, was the St. Louis- based Tom Packs , who quickly established himself in the National Wrestling Association and dominated it.
Packs' promotion, the Northwest Association , controlled wrestling in New England , New York , Missouri , Louisiana, and central states of Iowa , Nebraska, and Kentucky and parts of neighboring Canada . Soon Packs' authoritarian leadership style was criticized by the board of the National Wrestling Association and it was decided to oppose him with Paul Bowser . Bowser's Promotion, the American Wrestling Association , controlled Minnesota , Massachusetts , Ohio, and parts of New England, New York, and New Jerseys . Like Packs, the AWA was also active in Canada. But Bowser was unable to assert himself against Packs and so the two were already at odds in March 1936.
But even before the National Wrestling Association was founded as a promotion, she had been a world champion title (engl. World Title ), which they are unique in the wrestling history leaves.
NWA World Wrestling Championship
The World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship
The "World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship" or "World Championship" for short was a title introduced in November 1901, for which various wrestling promotions and departments competed. Although labeled as global, this title was only a national one. Only the first title holder, Georg Hackenschmidt , was able to win this title at an open tournament in Vienna . Hackenschmidt held the title for almost three years and defended it in real wrestling matches in Germany , France and Russia .
Georg Hackenschmidt was an exceptional athlete in his day: between 1900 and 1904 he competed several times for the "European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Title", which he won on September 4, 1902 in Liverpool from Tom Cannon could win. On April 30, 1904, he was recognized as world champion in London when he was able to defeat his opponent Ahmed Madrali.
On May 4, 1905, Hackenschmidt beat his opponent Tom Jenkins , the bearer of the American Heavyweight Title, and was now recognized as world champion in North America.
On April 3, 1908, Hackenschmidt lost the title to Frank Gotch in Chicago and then the title was only held in the United States. Since this was a cross-league title, the original World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship is also referred to as the Independent World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship.
In 1929 the NBA began to prepare its own global championship (NBA / NWA World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship) for its wrestling department. This newly created title should represent the counterpart of the already existing world championship in boxing (NBA World Heavyweight Boxing Championship) and should be defendable worldwide like this.
To achieve this goal, hosted the NBA on January 4, 1929, together with the American Wrestling Association , a tournament for the Wrestling World Championship, which was held in Boston .
The football professional Gus Sonnenberg was allowed to defeat his opponent and then reigning AWA world champion Ed Lewis at this tournament for the NBA . That was their title with the National Wrestling Association. This title has now been officially declared the "NBA / NWA World Championship" by renaming the AWA World Title.
Sonnenberg waived the title in exchange for a prize of US $ 7,500 and the NBA / NWA has now declared it vacant . The original title belt was then returned to the AWA and replaced with its own NWA replica.
Expansion into the most important US title
On August 23, 1929, the NBA / National Wrestling Association (NBA / NWA) was founded as the wrestling division of the existing boxing association. For this purpose, the NBA / NWA held an open wrestling tournament (English Free Tournament ) in Philadelphia for the new championship (English Championship ). After a knockout principle, Dick Shikat and Jim Londos faced each other in the final round . Shikat was able to defeat his opponent and has now been declared the first NBA / NWA champion.
In October 1930, the National Wrestling Association became independent and was now dictatorially led by Tom Packs . Under his leadership, he sat for some time in the New York State Athletic Commission of New York , the National Wrestling Association began from 1934 to establish its title as the highest ranking in the American scene. On June 25, 1934, Packs' world champion Jim Londos , the holder of the New York State Athletic State Commission World Title , was allowed to defeat the then reigning world champion of the National Wrestling Association, Jim Browning , in New York City hold both titles.
On July 30, 1935, the Boston-based Promotion American Wrestling Association joined the National Wrestling Association as a member (English Affiliate ) and its operator Paul Bowser was added to the Board of Directors .
In order to have a single world championship in wrestling, a tournament was organized by the AWA in Boston that day, which was about the unification of the "AWA Championship" and the "NWA Championship". Danno O'Mahoney , who was able to defeat Jim Londos for the title of the National Wrestling Association in Boston on June 27, 1935 , defeated his opponent Ed Don George at this AWA tournament and became the undisputed world heavyweight champion of wrestling Wrestling Champion ) declared.
On March 2, 1936, Dick Shikat was allowed to defeat O'Mahoney in New York City for the World Championship of the National Wrestling Association, but Bowser did not recognize it. In the meantime, he had fallen out with Tom Packs . So O'Mahoney was from the American Wrestling Association continue to run as world champion of the American Wrestling Association and referred and the Federation of National Wrestling Association threatened for the first time apart.
On April 25, 1936, Ali Baba was allowed to defeat Shikat in Detroit and become the new world champion. But already on June 12, 1936 he lost this title in Newark through disqualification to Dave Levin . However, Ali Baba refused to acknowledge this loss of title, and so he did not cede the title to Everette Marshal until June 26, 1936 in Columbus .
On September 28, 1936, the World Heavyweight Championship was declared vacant by the National Wrestling Association and the board of directors has now decided to have it held at an annual tournament.
On September 13, 1937, at the annual board meeting of the National Wrestling Association, John Pesek was awarded the vacant title after he was the only candidate. After paying a deposit of US $ 1,000, he was awarded the title by the board of directors. However, Pesek was stripped of the championship title on August 17, 1938, when he became world heavyweight champion of the Midwest Wrestling Association that day .
At the annual board meeting, the World Championship of the National Wrestling Association on September 14, 1938 Everett Marshall was awarded and not defended for the first time. Only when Lou Thesz received this on February 23, 1939, the championship was actively involved in wrestling again. However, this was a renewed AWA version, as the title match was held in the American Wrestling Association , which reactivated its title as the local version of the NWA championship.
Loss of meaning
By the beginning of the Second World War (1939), the NWA had risen to become the largest American wrestling umbrella organization (English Wrestling Federation ) despite all the difficulties .
Most of the sub-organizations of the National Wrestling Association were dissatisfied with the authoritarian, almost dictatorial leadership by Tom Packs from 1940. This led the National Wrestling Association like a syndicate. Because of this, for example, Orville Brown declared its independence as the first main organizer within the National Wrestling Association and pointed out that this was only a "Federation", a voluntary umbrella organization.
Brown was able to attract some influential wrestling promoters to his side: The promoters George Simpson , Al Haft , Tony Stecher , Wally Karbo , Maxwell Baumann and Billy Sandow , who were based in Kansas .
In Nebraska they began to organize for the first time under the banner of the "National Wrestling Alliance" and also came several times to Iowa. This name change, the replacement of the word "Association" by "Alliance", should openly express that this NWA was now an association of equal partners. This put these promoters in competition with Tom Packs, who saw the National Wrestling Association as his personal property.
The local promoter Paul George had a lot of similarities with regard to Brown's ideas and so he began to organize on behalf of the "National Wrestling Alliance". In January 1941, George renamed his doctorate and organized only under the banner of the "National Wrestling Alliance". From June 9, 1943, Brown and his partners organized almost exclusively in the Midwest and neighboring Canada. The "National Wrestling Alliance" became known nationwide through the press thanks to skilful marketing. However, the journalists referred to this as the Midwest Wrestling Alliance , as the abbreviation "NWA" was still related to the National Wrestling Association.
On September 1, 1943, Paul George went face-to-face with Tom Packs when the National Wrestling Alliance appeared in his home territory, Missouri. The NWA Iowa now declared Missouri to be their area of influence. But the Second World War showed its first traces as more and more doctorates were closed and their employees were called up for military service. This particularly affected the smaller ones, as the larger ones still had a certain reserve of older wrestlers.
Re-organizing the NWA
In July 1948, Paul George invited eight influential NWA promoters, including Tom Packs, to an exchange of views regarding the reorganization of the NWA in Iowa. The now heavily indebted Packs had sold its territory for US $ 360,000 to a consortium that also included Lou Thesz , Bill Longson , Frank Tunney and Eddie Quinn . They took part in the meeting but had no say. Only Thesz was included as a contender for the NWA champion title.
All those present agreed that the National Wrestling Association urgently needs to be reformed and, after its reorganization , should be called the “ National Wrestling Alliance ”. The ultimate goal was to reunite both NWAs and to achieve this, both World Titles should be converted into a single title. There was a paradox in the Midwest that there were two equivalent world titles from two NWAs in a region.
Incorporation into the National Wrestling Alliance
On July 20, 1948, just two days after the meeting, the National Wrestling Association named Thesz their third time world champion. And now all those involved worked out different storylines for possible title defenses ( title matches ). Above all, Orville Brown called for a unification match against Lou Thesz .
But a sudden accident injury by Brown forced the National Wrestling Alliance to award their title to Lou Thesz on November 27, 1949 without a fight. With the title union, the old NBA / NWA went on in the National Wrestling Alliance .
reactivation
With the title unification, the National Wrestling Association was part of the National Wrestling Alliance . But there were still forces who wanted to reactivate the NWA as an "Association". In 1953 the National Wrestling Alliance found itself at its height. You now belonged to 100 promoters and 30 doctorates. But her behavior was not entirely undisputed: she was said to have mafia-like structures and legal proceedings were taken against her.
Everything that the early National Wrestling Alliance complained about at the old National Wrestling Association, it now practiced itself. With the small difference that in the old NWA this "syndicate" was only united in the person of Tom Packs , in the "Alliance", except for Paul George, all organizers too. In May 1960 the American Wrestling Association left the National Wrestling Alliance and a little later the promoter RB Latting also left this umbrella organization. With some partners he reactivated the National Wrestling Association and tried to present it as real competition to the National Wrestling Alliance .
But the National Wrestling Association quickly became a bad copy of the National Wrestling Alliance. If the pointless blocking of wrestlers and promoters was criticized there, the National Wrestling Association practiced exactly the same under latting. The best-known example of such a block is Bruno Sammartino . This was closed on March 6, 1961 by the State Sports Commission of Maryland (English State Athletic Commission of Maryland ) for the territories of the National Wrestling Association. This was the direct result that Sammartino had started just two days earlier in San Francisco for the promotion Capitol Wrestling Federation belonging to the National Wrestling Alliance , while he was under a contract with the National Wrestling Association.
Vince McMahon terminated his contract in the National Wrestling Association Sammartino by buying it up and took Sammartino into his own promotion. Thus, these completely arbitrary blocking Sammartino Tinos was abolished and its ringer honor restored, since its entry (Engl. In all reverse directories Black Books ) was deleted.
At the end of 1962, both wrestling associations decided to give up their mutual competitive behavior. Instead, Vince McMahon (Capitol Wrestling Federation) and Larry Atkins (National Wrestling Association) agreed on a joint experiment called the World Wide Wrestling Association (WWWA) . This new promotion was located in Cleveland, Ohio and hosted throughout the Northeast and Chicago.
WWWA became known for a mixed fight that took place on April 18, 1963. On this day the boxer Muhammad Ali competed against the top star of the promotion Buddy Rogers . This collaboration ended on April 28, 1963. Vince McMahon took over the WWWA and united it with his doctorate, the Capitol Wrestling Federation. This has now been reorganized as the World Wide Wrestling Federation . McMahon ended his full membership in the National Wrestling Alliance and has now become an associate member of both the National Wrestling Alliance and the National Wrestling Association. As the operator of such an affiliated wrestling association (English Associated Promotion ), he sat on the extended board of both organizations and was able to specifically expand his personal influence on the wrestling scene.
At the end of 1972, McMahon and the board of directors of the National Wrestling Alliance agreed on renewed full membership of McMahon's Capitol Wrestling Federation and so this rejoined the National Wrestling Alliance in early 1973. At the same time McMahon gave up his seat on the board of the National Wrestling Association.
In March 1973, Nick Kerasiotis took over the helm of the National Wrestling Association. This was still firmly anchored in the independent wrestling scene (English Independent Circle ), but its member associations no longer used the abbreviation "NWA", as this was only associated with the National Wrestling Alliance . As a result, it was not possible to provide information about the current organizational structure. In October 1980 the National Wrestling Association was dissolved.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.solie.org/titlehistories/nwawht.html
- ↑ Certificate of dissolution (PDF), accessed on 11 Aug 2016.
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