Heart of America Sports Attractions, Inc. , operating as the Midwest Wrestling Association , Central States Wrestling and the World Wrestling Alliance , was an American professional wrestling promotion that ran shows mainly in Kansas , Missouri , Nebraska and Iowa . Due to the promotion's main office and base of operations being in Kansas City, Missouri the territory was often referred to simply as "Kansas City". The promotion existed from July 1948 until it closed in 1989. The territory was one of the original territories of the National Wrestling Alliance with two of the six "founding fathers" of the NWA ( Paul "Pinkie" George and Orville Brown ) promoting in it.
8-528: The NWA Central States Tag Team Championship was the primary tag team championship for the Heart of America Sports Attractions / Central States Wrestling promotion from 1979 until the promotion ceased to exist in 1988. The Central States Tag Team Championship had originally existed for a brief period of time in 1961, but its glory days date from 1979 to 1988, where it replaced the Central States version of
16-513: The NWA World Tag Team Championship . Because the championship is a professional wrestling championship, it is not won or lost competitively but instead by the decision of the bookers of a wrestling promotion. The championship is awarded after the chosen team "wins" a match to maintain the illusion that professional wrestling is a competitive sport. A total of 80 wrestler have combined in 55 different teams have held
24-484: The Batten Twins 292 days is the longest for any team. The longest individual reign was the team of "Bulldog" Bob Brown and Marty Jannetty who held it for 249 days. Due to gaps in documentation it cannot be verified if the three-day reign of Bob Brown and Pat O'Connor is the shortest reign of any champions. Heart of America Sports Attractions Originally known as the "Midwest Wrestling Association" before
32-529: The NWA Central States Tag Team Championship for a total of 68 reigns. Central States booker "Bulldog" Bob Brown has held the championship the most times, nine times with seven different partners. The Batten Twins (Brad and Bart Batten) is the team to have held the championship the most times as a team with four title reigns to their credit. Bob Brown's combined 528 days is the longest combined reigns of any one person and
40-588: The consolidation with the CSW and WWA. In 1963, wrestler/promoter Bob Geigel took over and partnered up with Pat O'Conner and promoters George Simpson and Gust Karras to form "Heart of America Sports Attractions, Inc." The promotion continued to be a cornerstone of the NWA with Geigel sitting on the board of directors and even served as chairman of the National Wrestling Alliance from 1978 until 1987,
48-591: The formation of the National Wrestling Alliance it controlled and booked shows territories in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa and was seen as a cornerstone of the NWA. It joined the NWA in October 1948. The territory was promoted by Pinkie George and the first official NWA World Heavyweight Champion Orville Brown ( Sonny Myers being the preceding unofficial one) from the creation of the NWA until 1958. The MWA World Heavyweight Championship began in 1940, preceding
56-619: The period that is considered the last "glory years" of the NWA. Central States Wrestling did not become a household name across the United States until 1973, when Harley Race brought attention to CSW (and its "sister promotion" the St. Louis Wrestling Club ) by winning the NWA World Heavyweight Title for the first time. In 1986, Geigel sold the promotion to Jim Crockett Promotions owner Jim Crockett, Jr. , who ran
64-446: The territory from September 1986 until February 1987, where Bob Geigel bought the promotion back and co partnered with George Petraski. After stepping down as chairman of the NWA, Geigel withdrew his promotion from the NWA in late 1987 and formed a new sanctioning body known as the "World Wrestling Alliance" in an attempt to compete with the national expansion of Jim Crockett and Vince McMahon . The move did not pay off and Geigel closed
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