Remember I said that the creation of the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship was one of the first times that story had been told? Well, this is where Vince McMahon Sr. got the idea. On November 1st 1957, Lou Thesz was awarded the NWA International Heavyweight Championship by the National Wrestling Alliance. Naturally, in those kayfabled days of yore, protecting the business was considered to be vital to the wrestlers, promoters and second generation carnies that made up the NWA - and ever other early professional wrestling organisation of the time, come to that. This being the case, they couldnt just let it be known that Thesz had been handed the title. Houston Wrestling promoter Morris Sigel provided the utterly made-up backstory: the legendary champion had defeated the almost-as-legendary Antonino Rocca for the championship way back in 1949. Bizarrely, the new NWA International Heavyweight Champion had been retconned into (kayfabe) having held the title for eightyears longer than it had actually existed.