10 Times Wrestling Promotions Came Back From The Dead
5. NWA - 2019
It's dead.
On life support after being decimated by the 1980s WWF boom, the National Wrestling Alliance branding was subsequently adopted as a means of legitimising ECW and TNA; the former abused it as a means of getting itself over as a transgressive new force, where the latter used it, in typically zany TNA fashion, as a shortcut to prestige. After TNA rebranded, the NWA shuffled along as a ghost that haunted the obscure reaches of the North American independent scene and, oddly, New Japan Pro Wrestling. As recently as 2014, Rob Conway was defending the ten pounds of gold at the Tokyo Dome - after which whatever remained of whatever the NWA was roamed purgatory.
It's alive!
For a bit!
Some enjoyed the throwback feel of the studio set-up relaunch conceived by Billy Corgan in 2019 after he purchased the rights in 2017. Savvy enough to align with Cody, the miraculous idea of an NWA World's Title match highlighting a major wrestling show in 2018 compelled the Smashing Pumpkins frontman to create Powerrr a year later.
The promos were excellent, the match quality solid by throwback design, but for some, the irony was suffocating: the studio design was so faithful as to be pastiche, and the geeked-out visual collided massively with Jim Cornette and the various wrestlers' claims that this wasn't "cosplay wrestling".
It was very, very much cosplaying wrestling, literally so, and in a further irony, it could never feel "real" as was the obvious intention.