The Titles

Here is a brief description of the titles themselves.

NWA International Heavyweight Championship

In 1957 Lou Thesz had been NWA World Heavyweight Champion for most of the previous 8 years. At this point Thesz is tired of the rigors of being the traveling world champion and wants to take a break. He also foresees (correctly I might add) wrestling in Japan becoming a booming business, and wants to bring them into the NWA fold. He wanted to give Rikidozan a short run as NWA World Champion as a way to foster relations and help capture the market. However, promoters like Sam Mushnick are rather shortsighted and simply don't trust other promoters, especially ones as far away as Japan. (What happens next is somewhat disputed.) So Thesz's intention is to pass the world title along and create an International title and take a working vacation to Japan. He then does a controversial title change to Edouard Carpentier. But issues with Carpentier and his promotor force the NWA to not acknowledge the disputed title change and Thesz is brought back.

Eventually Thesz drops the title again and is given the created NWA International Heavyweight Championship that he defends all over the world promoting the American style of wrestling. As he planned, he eventually looses the title to Rikidozan in Los Angeles who takes the title back to Japan where it becomes the countries top championship. It is defended for years in the Japan Wrestling Association (JWA), and most often worn by Giant Baba.

After Baba had left JWA, and onto when the JWA closed, the title was essentially vacant but revived in 1981 by Giant Baba and All Japan. There it has remained since and due to it's long lineage, essentially the top title in All Japan.

Pacific Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship

When Giant Baba formed All Japan, he needed to create a title since the JWA still held the NWA membership for Japan. He created his own sanctioning body, the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF), and then awarded himself the championship after winning a sequence of ten matches against some of the biggest stars in the world. In 1981, when All Japan formerly joined the NWA, he downgraded the PWF title, by removed the "World" from its name. Throughout the 1980's it served as one of the two major championships within All Japan.

NWA United National Championship

This has always been the least prestigious of the three titles. Think of it as the WWF Intercontinental Title to the WWF World Title during the 80's and 90's. Brought to Japan and the JWA by Antonio Inoki to give him a title lesser in statue to Giant Baba and the International Heavyweight Championship. During the late 70's and then into the 80's it was used to give Jumbo Tsuruta a championship while Baba held the PWF Title. When Baba removed himself from the title pictures, Tsuruta moved up to challenge for the International and PWF Titles and the United National title was used to get the likes of Genichiro Tenryu over.