NWA US TITLE BELT QUESTION

[jimbo42]

Back in the old Mid Atlantic Wrestling days when Blackjack Mulligan and Paul Jones feuded switching the NWA US TITLE back and forth.

Was the actual belt itself the big red leather one really the old IWA North American Title Belt? That they may have gotten from IWA after they went out of business.

All they had to do was change the name of the belt from North American to United States Heavyweight Championship. Anybody Know

[cwh47]

I believe they were two different belts. When Harley
Race dropped the US belt to Johnny Valentine in the
summer of 1975 the Einhorn version of the IWA
was still running shows at the Winston-Salem
Coliseum.Bulldog Brower still had the North American
belt at the time. Seeing the two belts on tv they did
look almost identical.Big red also looked just like the
Sheik's (Ed Farhat) US belt used in Detroit. In fact the
Sheik was advertised to wrestle Kevin Sullivan in
Greensboro in August 1975.It was mentioned in the
promos that he was the former US champion.The
Sheik failed to show for the match and Jim Crockett Jr.
said in a later promo that the Sheik would have to
post an appearance bond if he were to wrestle in the
Mid-Atlantic in the future. You can see a color photo of
Johnny Valentine wearing big red taken before the
Oct.1975 plane crash at the Mid-Atlantic Gateway. I
believe Brower was still wearing the North American
belt on the IWA tv shows at the time.

[kyle]

I'm sure you are right about them being different belts. I believe that the IWA North American belt is identical to the Sheik's US belt. I can't find any pictures of them right now, but I'm sure that they had four eagles (two on each side) on them. The Mid-Atlantic version had an Alaska plate on the right side and Johnny Valentine's had a plate for Hawaii beside it. Found a picture of Blackjack Mulligan with the Hawaiian plate also on Blackjack's Bar-B-Que site. Not sure if all the Hawaii plate was on the later versions.

[cwh47]

Good eyes Kyle.You are exactly right about those
side plates.The Obsessed with Wrestling site has
some good photos of Brower wearing the North
American belt including one that I would say was
taken quite some time after the original IWA had
folded.He is not quite as heavy and he has a curly
perm in his hair.You can see that he is wearing the
belt in that photo.

I have read several stories on the web that say
Crockett bought the belt from Einhorn after the
IWA went out of business.But the fact is that the
original IWA did not fold until after the match where
Johnny Valentine won the US belt from Harley Race on
July 3,1975 in Greensboro.

[RMF1973]

Here is the photo of Valentine with the "Big Red" Belt you guys have mentioned.

[kyle]

Until recently, I had never heard about the Crocketts buying the North American belt from the IWA. I remember the Mongols showing up on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling with the IWA Tag Team belts. Possibly Crockett bought these belts, but why bother when they had the Anderson Brothers beat the Mongols in every town that they had the matches. I really doubt that the Crocketts wasted a penny on buying the IWA belts. The Mongols still had them when they left and it looked good coming in as champions. Title vs. Title with the Andersons probably sold a lot of tickets.