National Wrestling Alliance / YMMV

Badass Decay:
- Once, the NWA was considered the ultimate authority in pro wrestling, with the champion recognized by the majority of promotions in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Mexico and beyond. With the rise of WWE, however, it soon became restricted to small scale independent promotions. It is, however, still respected in Japan, and has an ongoing relationship with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
- The treatment of the NWA World Heavyweight title, particularly in the late 80s throughout Ric Flair's various reigns. The NWA presidency was becoming declawed while various member promotions were stretching just how much they could get away with. Specifically, NWA bookers wanted their own top stars to go over the champion. In the past, the champ was the champ, and while the champion's job was to make local stars look good, he would still almost always come out on top. But more and more, regional members wanted special exemptions made: Dusty Rhodes did not want to lose in Florida, the von Erichs did not want to lose in Texas, and so on. More and more, the front office gave in, leading to more and more time limit draws meant to keep their members happy. The overall perception, then, to the casual wrestling fan, was that perennial WWF champion Hulk Hogan was an unstoppable juggernaut who had a solid hold on his belt, while Ric Flair was more lucky than good by taking a beating in every match from almost everyone and just barely escaping. A lack of solid high-profile victories over anyone of status by the NWA champion eventually began to erode the importance of the NWA title.
Creator's Pet:
- June Byers, whom The Fabulous Moolah claimed was sleeping with promoter Billy Wolfe to get better bookings. There is still a broken base here, with one half stating she was inferior to Mildred Burke and that is why her push coincided with the decline of women's wrestling in the fifties while the other points out she was still over and claims she was a revolutionary, preferring to blame any perceived declines on chauvinists who were taking hold of the USA during her reign. Regardless, Burke being kicked out of the NWA and three title changes being ignored in June's favor puts Byers squarely in this category, especially when one of those title changes was a catalyst in the WWWF breaking away from the NWA. This came to an end when the Baltimore Athletic Commission stripped her of the belt when she tried to retire as champion.
- George Gulas, son of NWA Mid-America promoter Nick Gulas, in the 1970s. Fans got so sick of George that they followed Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett out of Mid-America in droves, putting Nick out of business. This didn't stop the Jerrys from making the same mistakes with their own sons, Brian Christopher and Jeff Jarrett, in CWA, USWA or TNA though. In the latter case, perennial NWA champion Jeff was one of the masterminds of TNA alongside his father, meaning he graduated from 'pet' to 'co-creator'.
- Tyrus was a recent example of this due to Billy Corgan booking him to the top of the main card and yet the fans dislike him for competing past his prime, independently of his highly questionable political affiliations. To make matters worse, he won the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship in Hard Times 3, meaning that Corgan officially had chosen him as the face of the promotion over the likes of the longtime Ace Nick Aldis and fan favorite Matt Cardona.
Ensemble Dark Horse: The Mulkey Brothers, two guys the promoters were determined not use as anything but a jobber tag team but were hot with the crowds. So hot offhand jokes about them on commentary quickly showed up on merchandise that quickly spread throughout the South, especially in South Carolina.
Fanon Discontinuity: RoboCop has never appeared in anything relating to the NWA, or Sting, or The Four Horsemen.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- Lou Thesz was popular in North America but was almost as big in Europe despite wrestling a lot less there and was akin to a god in Japan.
- Bob Sapp was midcard indie wrestler in the USA but became huge in Japan, a real pro wrestling draw and the highest paid mixed martial artist in the world.
- Sabu is much more well known and much less of a Base-Breaking Character in Japan than he is back in the US.
- Jushin Liger is among the most recognizable Japanese wrestlers of North America, particularly the United States and Mexico. In Japan he's certainly respected but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who considers him among their biggest stars.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Howard Brody wrote a column in 2002 explaining why Ring Warriors was not the NWA, and a follow-up column in response to all the negativity it drew with his former friends in the NWA before going on the praise Future Of Wrestling(to show he didn't hate the alliance as a whole). In 2011 Ring Warriors actually did join the NWA only to leave at the end of 2012 when they learned they would no longer have a vote in how the alliance operated.
Memetic Mutation
- Fans sometimes still describe the losers of squash matches, especially extended squashes as "being destroyed", a (sometimes unknowing) reference to The Destroyer.
- "It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.", a misquote of Buddy Rogers.
- Iceman King Parsons: "Like Mama says, it be's that way sometimes. MERCY!"
- Jim Cornette breaking his knees during the scaffold match between The Road Warriors and The Midnight Express was the most replayed fall in pro wrestling until Mick Foley's from the Hell In A Cell structure through the Spanish Announcers' Table. After that his reaction to the resulting medical procedure, "The Cornette Face", became better known.
- "It's still real to me dammit!" (from an enthusiastic fan named Dave Wills at a press conference). It became an Ascended Meme when the NWA used Wills in advertisements for NWA Powerrr tapings where he repeated the phrase.
- "Trevor Murdoch is so tough he could strap Jim Cornette to the back of a moped, ride through an outlaw mud show, and come out unscathed!"^note

Older Than They Think:
- Many famous wrestlers start off in the smaller independent promotions which were/are still members of the NWA. Mick Foley began as Cactus Jack in the Memphis-based CWA, as did The Freedom Fighters, later known as the Blade Runners and best known as Sting and the Ultimate Warrior.
- One of the UK members, the Scottish Wrestling Alliance, had their own NXT in 2007, way before WWE's version.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Gary Steele and Naoya Ogawa weren't the most celebrated NWA World Heavyweight Champions, but their later runs in UK Hammerlock and Zero-1 turned the crowds around and retroactively made Ogawa holding the belt a good thing.
Rooting for the Empire: Sputnik Monroe is one of the most famous cases ever for trying to integrate sports stadiums in Memphis during the time of Jim Crow laws. Obviously this was to get under the skin of the white adults, who were the majority audience, but young boys and especially black wrestling fans loved him.
Spiritual Successor:
- Kerry Von Erich, who competed in Championship Wrestling From Florida, was known as the Texas Tornado for a stretch in the WWF. Galan Ramírez and Jacob Kilgore act as successors in NWA Bodyslam's Texas Tornadoes.
- The NWA Canadian Heavyweight Title established in 1993 and defended in ECCW is one to the belt established in 1946 that was defended in the Calgary Territory.
- In a promotional example, NWA Mid South is, of course one to the old Mid-South territory and had a rival in IWA Mid-South, until the latter was banished from the state of Kentucky.
- All Action Wrestling aimed to be what NWA World Championship Wrestling used to be for Australia when they became a member promotion in 2013.
- The Independent Wrestling Association, Global Professional Wrestling Alliance and World Wrestling Network are not organized like the NWA but are alliances made up of multiple promotions all the same. Of the post territorial "successors", The World Wrestling League might have been the closest in structure, described by some as a Latin American NWA until WWL became a promotion in its own right, unlike the NWA. All four "successors" listed have featured NWA Champions on their shows.
- CWF Hollywood, itself a spiritual successor, joined thirteen other promotions to form the United Wrestling Network in 2013, after it had left the NWA.
- Damien Wayne was champion of the Allied Independent Wrestling Federations at the same time his was one half of the NWA Midwest Tag Team Champions (with Lance Erikson).
- Hunter Law and Aria Blake have all but admitted to trying to emulate the Georgia seventies Marie Laveau.
Tough Act to Follow: Starrcade '86 drew a million dollars at the gate, which was unprecedented for a wrestling promotion in the Americas and wouldn't be seen again until CMLL's 81st anniversary show in 2014. Unfortunately, JCP went bankrupt in 1988. Big shows don't make up for the fact JCP had helped to destroy the territorial system which made the NWA thrive. There's also the fact Vince McMahon Jr. set out to ensure Starrcade '87 would be a flop by intimidating all but five cable companies into not carrying it by way of Party Scheduling Gambit, which was especially damaging since JCP intentionally sacrificed another shot at a big gate for a better looking pay-per-view.
Too Good to Last: Mid-South Wrestling had the highest rated show on cable television. Not wrestling show, highest rated show period. Bill Watts wasn't a businessman or people person capable of competing with McMahon or Crockett beyond the in ring product however.
WTH, Costuming Department?: Well, for a loose definition of "costuming", but the NWA has had a lot of odd logos and oddly shaped and designed world title straps when it came to representing the NWA as a whole. Particularly memorable is their giant world woman's belt that couldn't have looked good on anybody smaller than Amazing Kong, and the infamously awkward looking NWA National Heavyweight belt which could only look good on heavyweight and super-heavyweight wrestlers. It made the difference between the "World" and "Local" champions immediately obvious though, which made up for it looking over sized on its carriers. In the greatest irony of all, the Serial Escalation of Wrestling Belt design has made the once large looking NWA World's title look fairly unimpressive by comparison to other promotion's belts.

YMMV / National Wrestling Alliance

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