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List of National Wrestling Alliance championships


The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) is a professional wrestling governing body which has historically been the largest league of wrestling promotions in the world. The governing body itself does not promote wrestling matches but oversees a number of associated promotions all working under the "NWA" banner. Since its inception in 1948 the NWA governing board has sanctioned and controlled only a select few titles labelled as "World Championship"s and each promotion was allowed to create and promote other championships, which has led to a number of like named championships over the years. Title reigns are either determined by professional wrestling matches or are awarded to a wrestler, as a result of the culmination of various scripted story lines.

The NWA central office currently promotes four "World" titles, that are unique within all the affiliate promotions: the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship, NWA World Tag Team Championship, and the NWA World Women's Championship.

Upon its founding in 1948, the NWA Board of Directors recognized only three championships as world titles. There were no rules within the organization preventing individual members promoting titles in other divisions as world titles. Currently, only four (all but the Welterweight Championship) are currently recognized by the Board.

NWA promoters from EMLL, later renamed the CMLL, in Mexico began promoting two more championships as world titles, which were essentially regional titles controlled by EMLL. When the company withdrew from the organization in the 1980s, the titles were no longer officially sanctioned by the NWA, however they were still promoted as NWA sanctioned titles by EMLL. In Lucha Libre, titles generally stay with their holder when that competitor leaves a region or company. This practice has caused these titles, along with the Light Heavyweight Championship, to be accepted as "world titles" in Japan and Mexico. Weight limits for the titles are loosely followed by Lucha Libre promotions.

Prior to 1992, many NWA promoters sanctioned a regional version of a tag team championship as the "World Championship". Although named as world titles, none of the titles were sanctioned as the official world title by the Board of Directors and were technically regional championships. The Mid-Atlantic version, promoted by Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), became widely accepted as the legitimate world title when many promotions began folding or were bought out by JCP. With this consolidation, the Mid-Atlantic version became known as the World Tag Championship, although it was not technically recognized as such by the Board of Directors. It was, however, recognized as such by kayfabe magazine Pro Wrestling Illustrated. As JCP evolved into World Championship Wrestling, this version of the title would become known as the WCW World Tag Team Title.


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