The National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA's) claim that their World Heavyweight Championship is the World Championship is, due to its large membership of federations, worth exploring. This article examines the NWA World Heavyweight Championship on the basis of how it complies with the criteria set out in the first article of this series.

1- That the belt should be defended regularly and currently, or at least occasionally, in more than one country and preferably several countries on more than one continent.

The title is most often defended in the U.S.A. mainly because this is where most of its members are based, however it does meet the requirements of being contested (and indeed won) in numerous other countries and continents including:

• Puerto Rico, US territory several times

• Canada several times

• Japan, Asia several times

• Singapore, Asia

• New Zealand, Oceania

• Trinidad and Tobago

• Dominican Republic

• United Kingdom, Europe

Therefore, it has been defended in several countries and in at least 4 continents that can be verified. Considering how many countries pro wrestling is popular in, this seems to the author to be a suitable number to satisfy this criterion.

2- That the belt should be contested fairly regularly by wrestlers of different nationalities.

The title has, since the 1980s, been held by wrestlers from at least six countries: USA, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Dominican Republic and Croatia. The author considers this to be a suitable range of nationalities to satisfy this criterion.

3 – That the belt and its lineage should be viewed as prestigious by the wrestling community (both wrestlers and fans) around the world.

This is a quality that would be almost impossible to quantify in any meaningful manner. The prestige of the belt's lineage could be simplified to how how legitimately it can trace its history as the successor of the Undisputed Championship of 1905. This is not, however, the only factor affecting its prestige. The contemporary prestige of the belt is however a very subjective area and the author can see no alternative but to attempt to reflect the perception held by the wrestling community en masse of the title as impartially as possible.

Georg Hackenschmidt was considered by most in 1904-1905 to be the man with the greatest claim to being the World Heavyweight Champion of professional wrestling (he held the European Greco-Roman Heavyweight Championship and the World Heavyweight wrestling Championship (recognised outside of America). In America, Tom Jenkins (the American Heavyweight Champion) disputed that he was the Undisputed Champion and on 4^th May 1904, the two men squared off in Madison Square Gardens with their belts on the line. Hackenschmidt won by two straight falls and was universally declared the Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.

On 3^rd April 1908, Hackenschmidt lost to Frank Gotch in a controversial match, Frank Gotch became the new champion. The title then changed hands several times until 1922 when Stanislaus Zbysko defeated the champion – Wayne Munn. He became recognised around the world as the new champion, however, Illinois and Michigan, did not recognise the change of champion. This would have added confusion to the story had Ed “the Strangler” Lewis not won both the breakaway belt and the original and unified them again in 1928. Over the next few decades there were a number of other break-away recognitions and controversial victories. All of these breakaways were unified again on 9^th November 1956 by Lou Thesz. He becomes only the second universally recognised and completely undisputed champion (after Hackenschmidt).

From this point on, the NWA as the governing body recognised by the Champion Thesz claims that the various disputes (e.g. Edouard Carpentier's win by DQ in 1957, WWWF's refusal to recognise Thesz in the 1960s and the Stripping of Flair's championship) are negated by the various rules of the NWA, respectively: titles can't change hands by DQ; the right of the NWA to sanction the rules under which it is defended and the right of the championship committee to strip the championship from any individual. Therefore, the NWA can trace the roots of its World Heavyweight Championship to both Thesz and Hackenschmidt.

As far as the wrestling community's view of the championship goes, this is almost certainly divided firmly into those who view it as the most prestigious prize available to a pro wrestler and those who feel that the WWE's dominance of the business permits it the right to have its belts recognised above all others. The fact that the NWA belt is not defended in any of the major international promotions (WWE, TNA, NJPW, CMLL, AAA, Pro wrestling NOAH) any more does surely reduce its prestige somewhat.

Therefore, the belt's lineage though prestigious must be balanced against the current status of the belt.

4- That the belt should be the highest prize in any promotion in which it is contested.

The NWA World Heavyweight Championship is contested throughout the NWA's various member and affiliate promotions each of which have their own company belts but will in each case recognise, by virtue of association with the NWA, that the NWA World Heavyweight Championship is the more prestigious of those held. When TNA, until recently, held the exclusive rights to use of the belt, it recognised it as the main title in the company.

5- That the belt should be regularly contested by well-respected and accomplished wrestlers.

The Championship was until recently being contested in TNA where it was held by Ken Shamrock (PWI #226 in the world 2003), Ron Killings (#18, 2004), Jeff Jarrett (#5, 2000), AJ Styles (#7 in 2005), Raven (#22, 2003), Rhino (#39 in 2007), Christian Cage(#7, 2007), Sting (19, 2007) and Abyss (23, 2007). The above are all listed highly in the PWI top 500 list which in the author's opinion, provides evidence that they are worthy.

The present situation is less satisfactory in this criterion. Following the loss of TNA's wrestlers, the Championship had a greatly reduced pool of quality wrestlers available to it. There are some, such as Bryan Danielson, who would, in the author's opinion be widely respected as much as the recent champions from TNA, however, the current champion – Adam Pearce has only once made it into the top 100 of PWI's top 500 list (at #99). The Championship receives less television exposure today than it did during the TNA days which could also harm how the belt is viewed by the wrestling community at large.

The author's opinion is therefore that this final criterion probably is satisfied but not as easily as it would have been a year ago.