33.) Ken Shamrock
Total Days: 49
Number of Reigns: 1
We now enter the TNA years of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. When Jeff Jarrett created a new promotion, they immediately had the historic belt as their top prize and it was that way for quite a while throughout the early 2000’s up until they decided to make their own World Title. It all began in the inaugural episode of what was then still called “NWA-TNA” in 2002 when former WWE wrestler and MMA fighter, Ken Shamrock won a gauntlet battle royal for the vacant NWA World Title. In theory Shamrock seems like a pretty good decision to have as your champion, especially for a starting promotion but due to scheduling conflicts he was not able to fully prioritize pro wrestling as he was still at the prime of his MMA career at that point. Shamrock only had three successful defenses with the belt against Malice (aka The Wall from WCW), Takao Omori, and Sabu before losing the belt to Ron Killings. Many years later, just recently Ken Shamrock made his return to TNA, now known as IMPACT Wrestling and is a part of their main roster.
34.) Ron Killings
Total Combined Days: 119
Number of Reigns: 2
Nowadays people only know R-Truth as a goofy comedic wrestler and while he plays that role tremendously well, there was a point in time where Ron “The Truth” Killings (the persona was born in TNA) was not only a great wrestler in the ring, but especially underrated in the promos department. It may be a cliche at this point but during his early years in TNA after departing from the WWE, Killings was cutting amazing promos about being held back in the wrestling business because of his race. It wasn’t just a typical story either, he made it work and you believed in what he said because he himself probably believed in it to some degree, to me that is the beauty of a wrestling promo and speaks volumes to the talent of wrestlers who can deliver them well. The Truth defeated Ken Shamrock on an episode of NWA-TNA making him the first ever recognized African-American to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and to this day is still the only one so far. Truth had a pretty decent run in his first reign with the belt at eight successful defenses some of which were against veteran names like Curt Hennig and Scott Hall before losing the belt to Jeff Jarrett. Two years later he’d gain the belt again by winning a fatal four way involving then defending champion AJ Styles, Chris Harris, and Raven. This time the reign only lasted for 14 days before once again Jarrett takes the belt from him. Truth worked for TNA until in 2007 but by that point he was mainly relegated into a tag-team wrestler and was far from the main event scene. In 2008 he made his return to the WWE and still remains one of the most entertaining aspects of the whole show. The man is a living legend just for how talented he is as a performer, definitely deserving of a Hall of Fame induction.
35.) Jeff Jarrett
Total Combined Days: 1,005
Number of Reigns: 6
What happens when you own the promotion? You get a lot of free World Title runs that’s what. Look I actually got nothing against Jeff Jarrett, I think he is a pretty good wrestler as well especially in his prime both in-ring and promo-wise. But man did he overexpose himself a lot of times in the main event scene especially during the tail end years of WCW and early days of TNA. Obviously he owned the promotion and had all the creative control in the world to make himself champion and he wasn’t shy in doing so as throughout the 2000’s the NWA Title belonged to Double J. A total of six reigns and he is 8th among all time total combined days as champion. His third run with the belt was his longest at 347 days, he defended the belt 14 times not only in TNA however but also in other independent promotions and events. Around this time Jarrett was mainly feuding with the likes of Ron Killings, Jeff Hardy, Raven, Sting and a young AJ Styles for the belt. The thing about Jeff Jarrett is you gotta give him credit, he played his part as a champion you love to despise, carried himself like a champion you’d wanna see lose to the babyface or whoever he was feuding at the time, this may surprise some but he is an underrated worker in my opinion. Jarrett remained with TNA for 12 years straight before attempting to create his own promotion: Global Force Wrestling (GFW) but we all know how that went about, he tried to shoe his way back in TNA after GFW failed to turn into anything relevant before ultimately leaving and wrestling in the indies, but primarily for Lucha Libre promotion: AAA. Nowadays though he has made amends with the WWE, particularly Vince McMahon and has been inducted into their Hall of Fame which shocked so many fans including yours truly as hell truly froze over that day. He is now a producer for the company.
36.) AJ Styles
Total Combined Days: 196
Number of Reigns: 3
After thriving his way through small independent promotions and being used primarily as an enhancement talent in the final years of WCW, AJ Styles would eventually find his new home in TNA where he would eventually become one of their top stars in large part because of his phenomenal skills as a wrestler (pun is intended.) During the early years though Styles was still a freelancer, while he did wrestle the majority of his matches in TNA, he was also working for ROH. By the time he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time, he was already an established talent, winning the belt in a three way involving defending champion Jeff Jarrett and Raven. He would go on to have a pretty good run with the belt at 15 title defenses, a lot of which were for TNA obviously but he also put the title on the line in ROH against Chris Sabin, in CZW against his then arch nemesis Jimmy Rave, and twice in Valhalla Pro Wrestling (VPW) a Finland based promotion against Kid Kash and Jonny Storm respectively. After an eventful 133 days Styles loss the belt back to Jarrett, they would exchange the belts again on two more occasions however he would only have two short reigns this time around. AJ stayed with TNA until in 2014 when he left and went on to have an even more successful career in NJPW where he won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and led the Bullet Club to its peak popularity as a faction. This would all lead to his signing in the WWE where he would join the two Nature Boys: Ric Flair and Buddy Rogers as the only wrestlers to win the NWA and WWE World Titles in their careers. As someone who watched AJ pretty much since the beginning of his rise to superstardom to where he is now, it just feels so great to see his evolution as a performer. Yes he may have regressed a little bit now, because aging does occur folks, but to me is still one of the greatest wrestlers in the entire planet.
37.) Ray Gonzalez
Total Days: <1
Number of Reigns: 1
Probably the most odd NWA World Title reign ever goes to Ray Gonzalez. For those who may not be familiar with Gonzalez, first of all he is no relation to the giant of the same last name, second he is pretty much a veteran of the Puerto Rican wrestling scene by this point of his career. Obviously not as revered in the same heights as Carlos Colon and Savio Vega internationally, but he has carved out a household name for himself in the country. Around the time he won the World Title, TNA had a working relationship with WWC (the no. 1 wrestling promotion in Puerto Rico) who at the time had an ongoing promotion rivalry storyline with Savio Vega’s IWA promotion. On April 2005 Jarrett represented TNA and defended the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against IWA representative: Ray Gonzalez in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The latter actually won the match but would be stripped off the title in the same day after Jarrett complained that the referee counted unfairly, returning the belt to him. For a long time this brief title run by Gonzalez was not officially recognized by the NWA until just five years ago in 2015, making him the first recognized Puerto Rican champion of the title’s history but technically Carlos Colon has already won the belt before as mentioned previously, it’s just not part of the “official history” as pro wrestling is complicated like that. Gonzalez is a 21x WWC Universal Champion among many other accolades in Puerto Rico, he is yet to wrestle this year as his last recorded match was in July 2018 against Alberto El Patron (fka Del Rio) but he is far from being retired in the business.
38.) Raven
Total Days: 88
Number of Reigns: 1
What I like about Raven as a talent especially post-ECW is that he was able to re-invent his character while maintaining the mystique and presence that made it successful in the promotion. Most ECW alumni just stayed with the formula to what made them well known to fans and while there isn’t anything wrong with that per se, it is nice to see a sort of evolving “character arc” especially in wrestling and Raven was able to accomplished that around his time in TNA where he quickly became one of the top talents as ECW closed its doors. Obviously hardcore matches were his bread and butter but he was able to perform well in matches that do not involve weapons as well which really showcased him being underrated in the ring. Obviously it’s not Bret Hart levels of in-ring psychology or hard hitting bouts of that to Kenta Kobashi but Raven held his own against young talents like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, and Low Ki just to name a few. As for his run with the NWA World Title, he only held it once even though he has challenged for it multiple times before. Raven won the belt at the main event of the Slammiversary 2005 PPV in a King of the Mountain match against defending champion: AJ Styles as well as challengers: Abyss, Sean Waltman, and Monty Brown. He successfully defended the belt four times before losing the belt to Jeff Jarrett at Border City Wrestling, an Ontario based promotion. After wrestling for a plethora of promotions, big and small, across the United States, Raven still wrestles sporadically nowadays but is mainly focus on his podcast: The Raven Effect.
39.) Rhino
Total Days: 2
Number of Reigns: 1
Rhino holds the distinction of being the shortest reigning NWA World Champion that lasted a full day or more. In TNA post ECW/WWF days of his career, Rhino was always treated as a top talent, at worst as a consistent midcarder. Although his run as champion was laughably short but because they had to change plans to begin with. At Bound for Glory 2005 the originally scheduled main event was Jeff Jarrett defending the World Title against Kevin Nash, but Nash suffered an injury beforehand and withdrew the show thus TNA having a 10 man gauntlet match to replace Nash’s spot in the main event. Rhino won said match in a field involving Abyss, AJ Styles, Jeff Hardy, Kip James (Billy Gunn), Lance Hoyt (Lance Archer), Monty Brown, Ron Killings, Sabu, and Samoa Joe. Really puts you into perspective the group of talent TNA had at that point. Anyway Rhino would go on to defeat Jarrett in the main event at only 5 minutes with Tito Ortiz as special guest referee but just two days later dropped the belt right back to ol’ Double J. I know it’s all part of a storyline dating back to Rhino’s debut in the company but man what a waste of time, they could’ve built up Rhino more as a legitimate threat and champion but alas Jarrett always goes over. It’s like the poor man’s Triple H’s Reign of Terror. Anyway after his TNA run was over, Rhino wrestled for many other promotions then in 2015 returned to the WWE but has since left and is now back in IMPACT while also being able to compete elsewhere. Just recently he made his debut at Pro Wrestling NOAH where he faced Masa Kitamiya.
40.) Christian Cage
Total Combined Days: 245
Number of Reigns: 2
Arguably the wrestler that benefitted the most for their careers with the NWA Title’s existence in TNA was Christian Cage. Prior to his run with the belt, in the WWE he was treated as an upper midcarder at best and mainly found success within the tag-team division. Edge & Christian is after all one of the greatest tag-teams of all time but after leaving the company, Christian went to TNA in 2005 and was quickly treated as a main event level player. It is there where he truly got to showcase his skills that he is capable of being on the same level as his peers and he really became a star thanks especially to the NWA World Title. He first won it at the Against All Odds PPV in 2006 defeating Jeff Jarrett in the main event. Christian would go on to have a 126 day reign with 10 successful title defenses, this is where he also had his rivalry with Abyss. He would lose the belt the same year at Slammiversary in a King of the Mountain match back to Jarrett that also involved Sting, Abyss, and Ron Killings. In 2007 he had his second and final reign with the belt winning it in the triple threat elimination main event at the Final Resolution PPV against the defending champion Abyss and Jeff Jarrett. This time Christian had a little shorter run at 119 days, he successfully defended the belt against Samoa Joe (twice), Kurt Angle, and Sting before vacating the belt as the partnership between TNA and NWA would end making him the final champion of that era, lineage wise. Christian returned to the WWE full time in 2009 first for their revival of the ECW brand in which he won the World Title and later on become the World Heavyweight Champion (Big Gold) after his best friend Edge’s retirement in an underrated rivalry against Randy Orton. He retired in 2014 after winning a fatal 4 way number 1 contender’s match for the Intercontinental Championship.
41.) Abyss
Total Days: 56
Number of Reigns: 1
The last individual champion of the TNA era for the NWA World Title is “The Monster” Abyss. It may seem farfetched now but there was a point in time where Abyss’ mystique was at the same level of The Undertaker and Kane. Dream matches between him against members of the Bros. of Destruction were always a popular topic among the online fans. During the early years, TNA treated Abyss as an unstoppable force and rightfully so as Abyss himself portrayed his persona as one. Some of my early memories from TNA were the hellacious hardcore matches Abyss had against Sabu. As for his NWA World Title run in 2006 though, it was mainly more of a part of a storyline making him a transitional champion rather than having a lengthy title reign in mind. Abyss defeated one of his rivals Sting for the title at the Genesis PPV. He would only hold it for 56 days but within that timeframe, actually had plenty of successful title defenses. He mainly faced both Christian and Sting in PPV’s and episodes of TNA but he also defeated Brother Runt aka Spike Dudley twice at 2CW events before eventually losing the belt to Christian at Final Resolution 2007. Abyss looked like he would have been a lifer for TNA/IMPACT as he was there from the beginning but after 16 years of service he left the company and started working for the WWE as a producer to this day.
