Corgan Says NWA Affiliates—Including NWA East—Are Finished

By Trapper Tom

With William Patrick Corgan’s purchase of the National Wrestling Alliance this year, the NWA has been a topic of conversation for the first time since Shane Douglas tossed the famed “Ten Pounds of Gold” down.

Over the past few weeks, current NWA World Heavyweight Champion Tim Storm, has had more title defenses than any WWE World Champion. However, overall details of the “new” NWA’s future plan have been more secretive than anything at Area 51. However, a “Busted Open” podcast from October 9 revealed something that almost no one knew. Hosts Dave LaGreca and Larry Dallas interviewed Corgan, who announced that the main arm of the NWA has cut off all affiliates.

“We’ve let all of the affiliate programs lapse,” said Corgan in the telephone interview. “There will be no more NWA affiliates.” Corgan went on to say that he “empathizes with everyone else,” including those who have created their own “kingdoms,” championship belts and the like in affiliate program. However, the current NWA President, who is best known as a musician and Smashing Pumpkins front man, said “to the victor goes the spoils” and the program is now a thing of the past.

While no definitive, current and active list of affiliates currently exists, numerous searches find dozens of federations from all over the United States laying claim to the NWA in some fashion (with seven promotions in Texas alone). While most of the current list shows promotions that date back to only the year 2000, a few dates back later than that.

According to cagematch.net, Western Pennsylvania, McKeesport’s PWX was the NWA East flag-bearer from 2001-2012 (with PWX on the books beginning in 1999 and the NWA name last officially being listed in January, 2011). During its final few years, NWA East had a number of “affiliates” outside of PWX. None exist in 2017.

Since PWX dropped the NWA East banner, no promotion has maintained the same kind of prominence.

Many independent federations claim to be NWA affiliates, yet a number don’t figure the iconic letters in their promotion. “Innovative Wrestling” from Tennessee and “Irish-Italian Wrestling” based in New England were just two.

It’s interesting to note that current NWA Champion has defended the vaunted “Ten Pounds of Gold” in some of the Texas-based affiliates this year.

Corgan promises NWA wrestling “content” in the spring, and Storm continues to defend the belt and make appearances celebrating the belt’s lineage. Storm attended Tommy Dreamer’s “House of Hardcore” recently and “The Innovator of Violence” told the current champion that he’d love a shot at the title. Storm said he’d be willing to defend against Dreamer at any time. Meanwhile, NWA’s “Ten Pounds of Gold” documentary team took video of Shane Douglas in the background near the belt. Filmmakers noted that Douglas refused their request for a comment.

In a separate podcast, Douglas said he’d like to challenge for the NWA belt, and if he won, he would run the belt over with some heavy equipment and throw the trophy in a river.