2. Rob Conway vs. Satoshi Kojima (NWA World Heavyweight Championship)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGJ5XKTphxQ Okay. The National Wrestling Alliance still exists, it's title is held by the guy who wanted you to "look at " in the WWE, and the belt is still that smaller black and gold version that say, Harley Race and Ric Flair fought over at the first Starrcade. However, this is a match that will amaze you when you consider it as a microcosm of the pro wrestling industry at large. On March 21, 1991, New Japan Pro Wrestling's Tatsumi Fujinami wrestled NWA Champion Ric Flair in front of a (then) sold-out 64,500 people at the Tokyo Dome at the WCW/New Japan Supershow. If you want a solid clue of a) just how much the American wrestling landscape has changed and b) just where the NWA falls as three letters in pro wrestling, consider the NWA Championship match between champion Satoshi Kojima and challenger Rob Conway at the Cauliflower Alley Club's annual gathering in June of 2014. Held in front of what appears to be a less than fully engaged crowd, Conway's second reign as NWA Champion was certainly not as well received as Fujinami's win 24 years prior.
Marcus K. Dowling
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Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
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