NWA World Champion
| NWA World Heavyweight Championship | |||||||||||||
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The current NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt.
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| Details | |||||||||||||
| Promotion | NWA | ||||||||||||
| Date established | July 14, 1948 | ||||||||||||
| Current champion(s) | Tim Storm | ||||||||||||
| Date won | October 21, 2016 | ||||||||||||
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| Statistics | |
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| First champion(s) | Orville Brown |
| Most reigns | Ric Flair (9 reigns) |
| Longest reign |
Lou Thesz (2,300 days) |
| Shortest reign | Shane Douglas (<1 day) |
| Oldest winner | Tim Storm (51 years, 173 days) |
The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship in the National Wrestling Alliance. Its lineage has been traced from the first World Heavyweight Championship, which traces its lineage to Georg Hackenschmidt's 1905 title and Frank Gotch's 1908 version. This effectively makes it the oldest surviving wrestling championship in the world. The title has been competed for in such well-known promotions as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE), New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), Ring of Honor (ROH), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).
With many territorial promotions appearing across the United States, the NWA was formed in 1948 as an overall governing wrestling body. Like franchises, these territories had the option of NWA membership. The promotion owners had to recognize the NWA heavyweight, junior heavyweight, and light heavyweight champions as world champions while retaining their own ownership and top champion. Ric Flair holds the record for the most reigns with nine.
Every year, the NWA World Heavyweight Champion would travel to each territory and defend the title against the territories' top contender or champion. The purpose of the world champion was to make the top contender look good and still hold the title. The NWA board of directors, composed mostly of territory owners, decided when the title changed hands via a vote. By the late 1950s, however, the system began to break down. As Lou Thesz continued to hold the title, other popular wrestlers such as Verne Gagne became frustrated over the lack of change. There were also disputes over the number of appearances the champion would make in different regions.
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