NWA Titles on JCP TV

Hey Scott,


Help some of us uninformed understand something.

If the NWA was a territorial concept, why were all the major NWA titles (World Heavyweight, United States, TV, World Tag Team, United States Tag Team) put on guys that were on the JCP roster? Was anyone that appeared on a JCP show like World Wide, Pro or World Championship Wrestling under contract with Crockett? Or is this a deal where the NWA wanted some TV time for their titles, so they allowed Crockett guys to be booked as champs?

Then, what happens when Turner buys JCP and turns it into WCW? WCW breaks away from the NWA and they keep all the NWA titles? Did the NWA start a new lineage after the break up?

​OK, this is actually a common misconception with the NWA, so let’s clear it up.

The NWA as a governing body only sanctioned the World heavyweight title and a junior title. There was never any NWA World tag team titles or anything else. I know, I just blew your mind. The fact that we associate the Crockett versions of the tag titles/US title/TV title with the NWA as a whole is because Crockett is the guy who had the TV clearance. The titles we know as the NWA World tag titles are more properly defined as the Mid-Atlantic tag titles, which were then turned into the World tag titles when Crockett went national. There was actually a shitload of different "NWA World tag team titles" across the territories, and we only ever heard about one of them. Same with the US title, which was more properly defined as the top title of the Crockett territory, just like the National title was the top belt in the Georgia territory and the North American title was the top belt in Mid-South. The NWA didn’t particularly care what you called your own titles, as long as you didn’t try to detract from the NWA World title. That was part of the reason why Verne Gagne never got the belt, as there was some really nasty politics being played when he was the top star on the DuMont Network in the 50s. Basically they couldn’t get dates with the World champion, so they crowned Gagne the US champion and had him go on TV and basically declare himself the uncrowned World champion, and that was a MAJOR no-no at the time. They had to make his belt the "US TV title" to downgrade it and eventually the bitterness led to Verne splitting off into the AWA.

​As for the Turner buyout, as noted everything but the NWA World title belonged to JCP anyway. The US, World tag team, TV, six-man, blah blah blah, were all Crockett property. The NWA had no lineage claims on any of it. And then when they split on 01-01-91, Sting became the first WCW World champion, who happened to also be NWA World champion.

It’s a really complicated deal.