WWE: Ranking Ric Flair's 16 World Title Runs - From Worst To Best

10. NWA World Championship (8th NWA Championship, 10th Overall) July 18, 1993 - September 13, 1993

Ric's final dance with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship saw him take the gold from Barry Windham at Beach Blast in one of Flair's first matches back with World Championship wrestling, after an 18-month stint in Connecticut (a no-compete clause in his WWE contract prevented him from wrestling for any non-WWE promotion for quite some time after leaving the company). By this time, the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, while still exclusive to World Championship Wrestling, was a completely separate World Championship from the WCW World Championship due to what transpired the last time Flair held the prestigious title(s). Like his previous run with the championship, it would create quite the conundrum for wrestling fans by the end of the reign. A WCW television taping in August featured Rude challenging Flair for the NWA Championship at Fall Brawl, September 19 on a segment of Flair For The Gold that would air on television August 28. Later in the taping, Rude appeared with the belt thereby giving away the planned results of a pay-per-view still weeks away. This angered the NWA Board of Directors which was appalled at the breaking of kayfabe. On September 13, after issues with World Championship Wrestling over breaking kayfabe and the company's insistence on exclusive rights to the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, WCW and the NWA announced their relationship was ending. WCW did not sell or give the Big Gold Belt which for nearly the last decade had represented the NWA Championship but was originally created by Jim Crockett Promotions for Ric Flair and subsequently purchased in 1988 by WCW. After this date and starting in earnest on the Fall Brawl broadcast six days later on September 19, WCW no longer made any mention of the NWA and renamed the Big Gold Belt the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship, explaining that WCW International was an international division of WCW with its own board of directors separate from WCW's. Rude won the title from Flair at the pay-per-view as planned and business went on as usual for WCW, eventually unifying this title with the WCW World Championship in 1994. In turn, the NWA much like they did when Flair appeared on WWE TV with the belt in 1991 stripped Flair of the NWA Championship on September 13. Like the last time, the NWA put it on the line in a tournament. This tourney saw Shane Douglas crowned champion a result that itself would become the catalyst for an entirely new chapter of wrestling history to be discussed another day. Once again, a tumultuous period in wrestling history centered on Ric Flair's possession of the NWA Championship and WCW's relationship with the NWA, but nothing terribly memorable from Flair in the ring when it comes to this reign.