10 More Wrestling Facts You Probably Didn't Know
9. There Were Two NWAs
The NWA everyone remembers - well, aside from that thing Dre and Cube had going - is, of course, the National Wrestling Alliance, that motley collection of regional promoters who maintained a stranglehold on North American wrestling for forty years.
What many don’t remember is that there was an NWA before ‘Pinkie’ George founded the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948. The National Wrestling Association had been formed in 1930 by the National Boxing Association in an effort to do for professional wrestling what the NBA was supposed to do for boxing: provide a hierarchy and much needed regulation, streamlining the many alleged ‘world champions’ competing regionally across the country.
When the National Wrestling Alliance formed, in part because of disagreements with the Association's choice of world champion, the Association was on borrowed time - and once the Alliance chose the Association’s World Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz to hold their own world title, the Association quickly folded their title’s lineage into the upstart Alliance’s new championship.
The National Wrestling Association quietly bumbled along, gradually fading from view, until officially dissolving in 1980. Of course, the National Wrestling Alliance is more or less in the same position now...