Written by: Super Mastodon (@SuperMastodon)
Since NWA Power has been receiving a ton of positive feedback from wrestling fans, I decided to finally put this long time project of mine into fruition. The year is almost over, a new decade will be upon us. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship has been existing for 71 years and is the oldest active World Title in wrestling today. Through the years, the belt has seen a plethora of champions from legendary names to maybe forgotten and odd ones.
For this article, we will be taking a look at every official/recognized wrestler that has held the Ten Pounds of Gold and discuss how well they did as champion, their impact to the company and to the wrestling business as a whole. Starting all the way from 1948 up to the present day, the lineage of the NWA title is nothing but short of historic, so without further ado, let us enter the Hall of Champions.
1.) Orville Brown
Total Days: 475
Number of Reigns: 1
Every World Title has a foundation and for the NWA it all began with the late great Orville Brown. Perhaps a name you don’t get much to see nowadays, Brown made his pro debut all the way back in 1929 after being recommended to promoters by another old school wrestler in Abe Coleman. He got to impressed the fans and promoters alike quickly by having great matches against big names like Jim Londos and Ed “Strangler” Lewis. In 1948, he was recognized as the first World Champion by the newly formed National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and went on to unify the belt with other local championships. Brown had an impressive 475 day run as champion and according to cagematch.net had a total of 90 title defenses across various territories in the US. His career got cut short however after suffering injuries from an automobile accident. He was supposedly going to have a unification title match against Lou Thesz but that obviously got cancelled and Thesz was awarded the belt after being vacated. Orville Brown passed away in 1981 at the age of 72.
2.) Lou Thesz
Total Combined Days: 3,749
Number of Reigns: 3
If you ask real old school wrestlers and fans on who do they think is the greatest of all time, chances are you’d get Lou Thesz as an answer. The man is a personification of what a professional wrestler is all about during his era. A skilled grappler with a no-nonsense competitive attitude. Plus if we’re simply talking about “World Champion” material, Thesz brought it to a whole ‘nother level. To this day his record will likely never go broken in the total combined days as NWA Champion across only three reigns which makes it all the more impressive. His first run with the belt lasted for an astounding 2,300 days and according to cagematch.net he defended the belt 186 times! He held the belt two more times after that, with reigns just as impressive, and really solidified his career as the best wrestler in the world during that time. He wasn’t just an excellent wrestler however but also an innovator, Lou Thesz is credited with the invention of various maneuvers such as the belly-to-back waistlock suplex, which would later be called the German suplex due to it being associated with Karl Gotch. You also got the famous Lou Thesz Press maneuver, the stepover toehold facelock aka the STF, and the original Powerbomb. He had an active career that lasted for seven decades, with his last match in 1990 at New Japan Pro Wrestling against Masahiro Chono. Thesz passed away in 2002 at the age of 86, since then he has been inducted into numerous Hall of Fames and even getting one named after him the: George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. He may be gone and might have not been known by some modern day fans, but Thesz’s contributions and legacy to the wrestling world will forever be immortalized.
3.) “Whipper” Billy Watson
Total Days: 239
Number of Reigns: 1
The first international wrestler to hold the NWA World Title is from Canada and that is “Whipper” Billy Watson. Great Canadian wrestlers are always present in history with guys like Bret Hart and Chris Jericho, among many others, cemented their legacies in the wrestling lore. However probably because of the era of his prime years, Billy Watson does not get enough recognition. He was the one to end Lou Thesz’s historic 2,300 day run as champion in his home state of Ontario, Canada. Watson would go on to hold the belt for 239 days, often defending it in Canadian territories before dropping the belt right back at Thesz. After his retirement from wrestling in 1971, Watson became a beloved and respected figure by his fellow Canadians because of his charity work. He may have been tough in the ring but outside of it, was a kind gentle soul. In 1990 he passed away at the age of 74.
4.) Dick Hutton
Total Days: 421
Number of Reigns: 1
Probably one of the most forgotten about champions of the belt was Dick Hutton. He made his debut in 1952 after a successful college career, making him the first ever former NCAA Champion to hold the NWA Title. During his wrestling run, he developed a friendship with Lou Thesz and would go on to beat him in his second run with the belt. Hutton won the belt in Toronto and held it for 421 days beating numerous challengers in the process primarily in the Missouri and Canadian territories. His run as long as it may, was forgettable according to many. Some criticized him for being an uncharismatic champion but others praised him for his elite wrestling skills. Even back then polarizing champions have existed and I guess it goes even further way back with Wayne Munn in his run with the Original World Heavyweight Championship. After dropping the belt to Pat O’Connor, Hutton never really gained back any momentum and that was his only “shining moment” if you will of his wrestling career. He was forced to retire after having some heart issues and other injuries before passing away in 2003.
5.) Pat O’Connor
Total Days: 903
Number of Reigns: 1
The first and so far only wrestler to win the NWA World Title from New Zealand was the late great Pat O’Connor. Before entering pro wrestling he had a successful amateur career in the late 40’s and even won the New Zealand Heavyweight Championship. In 1950 he officially became a pro and started wrestling in America. January 1959 he defeated Dick Hutton to become NWA World Champion and it lasted for an amazing 903 days straight, during that run he successfully defended the belt 133 times primarily in the Missouri, Texas, and Canadian territories. When the American Wrestling Association (AWA) separated from the NWA, they recognized O’Connor as their first World Champion making him the only man in history to hold both the NWA and AWA World Titles at the same time. His run as AWA Champion was only short though as they would award the belt later on to Verne Gagne, who funny enough was the promoter, who could’ve seen that coming? O’Connor was an underrated grappler. He wasn’t flashy or anything like that, still went through the traditional sense of pro wrestling during his era but he could go at it with the best of them. After a long run he dropped the belt to Buddy Rogers on June 1961. He continued to actively wrestle until the early 80’s and in 1987 wrestled for the WWF in an “old-timers battle royal” which Lou Thesz won. Just a couple of years later unfortunately, Pat O’Connor passed away at the age of 65.
6.) Buddy Rogers
Total Days: 573
Number of Reigns: 1
Before Ric Flair and Jackie Fargo strutted around the ring, there was first the original Nature Boy: Buddy Rogers. Similar to his predecessor Gorgeous George, Rogers began as a traditional wrestler but would later on find major success once he dyed his hair blonde and wore flamboyant outfits. Plus his promos were innovative for their time which in turn would inspire a generation of wrestlers to come. Rogers’ match against Pat O’Connor for the NWA World Championship was at the time a record sold out crowd at Chicago and was billed as the “match of the century.” They were the two top wrestlers at the time and in the end, Rogers would end up winning. His run as champion is a little complicated, his reign is officially recognized as 573 days straight although in between those, he was actually defeated by a few wrestlers and those went unrecognized for one reason or another. For example in the same year, Killer Kowalski defeated Rogers in Montreal and actually went on to have a lengthy 425 day reign but he was only recognized as champion by a few territories and not the NWA as a whole. Then Bruno also beat Rogers for the belt in 1962 this time in Toronto but he refused to accept the title itself because Rogers had wrestled with an injury. Lastly, at Newark, New Jersey Bobo Brazil defeated Rogers and had a short 73 day run with the belt but his title reign was never officially recognized although technically speaking, he was the first ever African-American World Champion. Politics and other shenanigans have always been a part of wrestling since the beginning and those were just some sample scenarios.
As for Buddy Rogers’ run in itself, he was a great champion and a massive draw among the fans at the time despite being a heel. His rivalry with Lou Thesz exceeded even outside the ring so there matches always had a little bit more drama than usual. Speaking of Thesz, he would be the one to end Rogers reign. Later on Buddy Rogers became the inaugural WWWF World Heavyweight Champion once Vince McMahon Sr. separated from the NWA and build up his own promotion, which is now the WWE. During Rogers’ final years as a wrestler, he even had a match against his successor: Ric Flair in 1980. He would retire two years later and was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
7.) Gene Kiniski
Total Days: 1,131
Number of Reigns: 1
He wouldn’t be called “Canada’s Greatest Athlete” for nothing, Gene Kiniski was also one of the greatest grapplers of his era who had a career that spanned for half a century, across the world. Kiniski was one of the early examples of a truly hated villain in wrestling. Fans despised him and some of his matches would cause ire from the crowd. In 1966 he defeated Lou Thesz to become NWA World Heavyweight Champion and had a lengthy three year run with the belt which saw him defend it successfully 102 times whether in the US, Canada, and even Japan. At this point he was already facing some familiar faces such as The Funks, Abdullah the Butcher, Bearcat Wright, John Tolos just to name a few. By the tail end of his run as champion, Kiniski was exhausted and decided to drop the belt to an up and comer second generation wrestler: Dory Funk Jr. in 1969 at Tampa, Florida. However his wrestling career did not end there as he continued competing until in 1992. In fact in his last match, Gene Kiniski was involved in a six man tag and his partners were none other than a young Chris Jericho and Lance Storm for a promotion in Winnipeg called WFWA. In 2010, the mighty Canadian passed away at the age of 81.
