Continental Wrestling Association
| Acronym | CWA |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 20, 1977 |
| Defunct | 1989 |
| Style | Rasslin' |
| Headquarters |
Memphis, Tennessee Nashville, Tennessee |
| Founder(s) | Jerry Jarrett |
| Owner(s) | Jerry Jarrett Jerry Lawler |
| Parent | Jarrett Promotions, Inc. |
| Merged with | World Class Wrestling Association |
Continental Wrestling Association (later on “Championship Wrestling Association”) was a wrestling promotion managed by Jerry Jarrett. The CWA was the name of the "governing body" for the Championship Wrestling, Inc. promotion which was usually referred to as Mid-Southern Wrestling or the Memphis territory. This promotion was a chief NWA territory during the 1970s and early 1980s while operating out of Tennessee and Kentucky. The CWA was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance until 1986 and affiliated with the American Wrestling Association until 1989. In 1989, the CWA merged with the World Class Wrestling Association to form the United States Wrestling Association thus ceasing to exist as a separate entity.
The professional wrestling territory commonly referred to as the “Memphis Area” was originally part of the NWA Mid-America promotion that was founded in the 1940s and operated in Memphis, Tennessee and in Nashville, TN, but also included stops in Chattanooga, TN, Jackson, TN, Louisville, KY, Lexington, KY, Bowling Green, KY, Evansville, IN, Birmingham, AL, Huntsville, AL, Tupelo, MS, Jonesboro, AR, Dayton, OH, Wheeling, WV and even small towns in southeastern Missouri, northern Georgia and eastern North Carolina. The "NWA Mid-American" territory was a tag team hot bed for most of its early years, featuring tag teams in nearly all of its main events, and sometimes featuring only one or two singles matches to compliment an evening of tag matches. Such teams as The Von Brauners, The Interns, The Infernos, The Bounty Hunters, Tojo Yamamoto and Jerry Jarrett, Don and Al Green, Bobby Hart and Lorenzo Parente, The Fabulous Kangaroos, Jerry Lawler and Jim White, The Fabulous Fargos, and a host of other teams were regulars. During the mid-1970s the focal point of the territory changed from tag wrestling to singles action around the same time as Jerry Lawler's rise to become the "King", and a split that forever changed the territory.
In the mid-1970s the territory split in two, with separate promoters for each half. Jerry Jarrett ended up as the promoter in charge of Memphis, Louisville, Lexington and Evansville while still part of NWA Mid-America, while Nick Gulas, who had been the primary booker, continued to promote the other half of the territory. A dispute arose between Nick Gulas and Jerry Jarrett. Many of the wrestlers in the promotion were upset at Nick Gulas for over booking Nick’s son George Gulas in the extremely profitable Memphis half of the territory. George Gulas was not built very well at all, he was tall and lanky but physical build was something which was not all that important to the fans in the area, but he was also not a great worker. It was very hard to believe, even for wrestling fans used to poorly built wrestlers, that George could regularly beat his larger more experienced foes. George was given matches and wins over longtime veterans of the territory without "paying his dues". This started the rift. After Jerry Jarrett had invested 50000 Dollars into what he thought was a 10%-share of the promotion and learned that Gulas had tricked him into paying for an option to buy only (which by the time he learned had already expired) he decided to go his own way. Jarrett decided to break away by starting competing cards at the Cook Convention Center in March 1977. Nick Gulas, who lived in Nashville, eventually made "Music City" his home base, running weekly cards at the Fairgrounds and all over mid-Tennessee. Originally Gulas was backed by many of the areas top draws but Jerry Jarrett had two aces up his sleeve. First he was backed by Jerry Lawler, who had just toppled Jackie Fargo as the headliner of the area, and second was that with Lawler he had Memphis. Memphis was clearly the hot spot for the territory. Gulas did attempt to run shows in Memphis for some time but without the headliner, Lawler, he could not compete. The split between Gulas and Jarrett created the Continental Wrestling Association as a totally separate promotion run by Jarrett. In 1980 after only three years, the Gulas territory folded when Nick Gulas retired and the CWA took over some of the more profitable locations (e.g. Nashville).
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