TNA News (No more NWA I guess)

[St. Jimmy]

Originally Posted by DarthTeedious Got a picture?

Now that's a belt.

[PullMyFinger]

PWTorch has learned that TNA Wrestling and the NWA have agreed to a split of their partnership. Bob Trobich, head of legal for the NWA, and Steve Campbell, head of legal for Panda Energy as representative of TNA, have negotiated to terminate the working agreement between the NWA and TNA. NWA will take back possession of the NWA Hvt. Title and NWA Tag Titles with a storyline to be set up at the Destination X PPV. Jeff Jarrett has been the third party representing TNA during the negotiations to cease the working relationship. There have been a lot of rules that the NWA has that TNA has not been following. As TNA has grown, and as the NWA name has become less of a marketing asset, a split was considered a strong possibility. TNA long ago stopped using the title "NWA-TNA" as its name. TNA aligned with the NWA initially because TNA founder Jerry Jarrett, Jeff's father, believed that the "NWA" name carried credibility with the target audience for the weekly Wednesday night PPV format TNA began with. The heritage of the NWA World Title has been a marketing tool for TNA over its four-plus year history. TNA, though, did not want to abide by NWA rules such as having to notify the NWA board ahead of time when a title change was planned, use the NWA name in all marketing, and pay the NWA a fee if TNA ran an event in another NWA member's territory. For those and a variety of other reasons, an agreement to split has been reached. TNA's titles will lose the NWA label and become TNA titles. How TNA will handle the "lineage" aspect of the storyline shift is not known yet. This has happened before, such as when ECW and World Class Championship Wrestling split from the NWA in the mid-1990s and mid-1980s respectively. The Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter broke the story nationally five years ago this week that the Jarretts planned to launch a new national wrestling promotion. The full story can be read by VIP members here: Jarretts plan to launch new national promotion. The cover can be seen on the introductory page for PWTorch.com.

Well there you have it. Like I said, I just hope they make a GOOD title like IWGP. WWE really has no good championship belts...the Smackdown title is a poor man's version of the original WCW belt. I don't know they they even touched it. Cena's belt is just flat out horrendous. I don't even remember the last time when I even saw the belt at its normal state...I think it was JBL's reign.

[Mr. Nerfect]

That is indeed a sexy belt.

[Dorkchop]

Originally Posted by St. Jimmy Now that's a belt.

That belt looks important

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Impact! I'd like to see something like this. Christian Cage loses the NWA Title to Kurt Angle in a triple threat (with Joe)at a PPV when AJ Styles and Steiner turn on Cage. The next night on iMPACT! Kurt is in the ring doing a promo when Samoa Joe's music hits and he comes out with a belt on shoulder. Samoa Joe then proclaims that even though he was cheated out of his first World title by Kurt Angle, he still has a belt. That belt being the TNA World Heavyweight championship. Angle then asks who gave him that belt and Jarret comes out. Jarret then proceeds to run down Angle and the NWA belt. From here you could have team NWA (Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, Scott Steiner, Chris Sabin, Robert Roode) and team TNA (Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Jeff Jarret, Eric Young, Jerry Lynn) battleing for whose championship is better. Sting would also be a crucial part of the fued where he chooses neither team, as he doesn't want to choose between TNA and NWA. Eventually a Triple Threat (where to win you must pin both opponents) between the NWA Champion (Kurt Angle) TNA Champion (Samoa Joe) and Sting, where Samoa Joe would be crowned TNA Champion, eliminating the NWA Championship. Something like that would be pretty cool imo.

I like. Building on this, how does this sound?

Christian Cage defeats Samoa Joe at Destination X, with some help from AJ Styles, who officially aligns with him. Joe is pissed off, and says it's time for a new era for TNA, and he declares himself with the first-ever TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Cage is furious, and says that Samoa Joe can't do that, and Jim Cornette says that he has the backing of a potential division of Kurt Angle, Sting, Rhino and Jeff Jarrett, who holds stock in the company. Cage is pissed, so Cornette books a match for Lockdown:

Lethal Lockdown Match
NWA World Heavyweight Championship Division
Christian Cage, Tomko, Scott Steiner, AJ Styles and Abyss

VS

TNA World Heavyweight Championship Division
Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Rhino, Sting and Jeff Jarrett

The winning team's Champion becomes the universally recognised World Champion of TNA Wrestling. Team TNA win when Tomko loses the fall to Jarrett, or something.

We get a King of the Mountain Match set-up for either the next PPV, or Slammiversary, with Samoa Joe defending against Kurt Angle, Rhino, Sting and Jarrett. The men who represented the NWA Championship have to re-qualify for World Title contention, which pisses off Cage, but allows him to re-prove his worth in the mid-card.

A few complaints have been made about Cage being a mid-carder in the WWE, and then suddenly just becomming a main event. Not many people dispute he deserves to be there, but some think he should have started lower in TNA, but been allowed to climb (the difference between WWE and TNA). This would allow Cage to do that, claim to be a former two-time World Champion, and even remain undefeated in TNA competition.

Samoa Joe is a good choice for first-ever TNA World Heavyweight Champion, in my opinion.

Team 3D should go the belt throwing route, in my opinion. Have them beat The LAX at Lockdown to finally win those elusive NWA World Tag Team Championship, then just do the ECW thing (they seem the kind of characters to try and be ECW in everything they do), and dump the belts and claim to be the first-ever TNA World Tag Team Champions. That's another two Tag Team Title reigns for The Dudley Boyz.

This may be seen as a step back for both men, and in some ways it may be, but I'd stick America's Most Wanted back together, upset that their hard work in the NWA World Tag Team Division has just been thrown aside.

The rest of the tag divison could very easily be put together. The LAX would obviously be included, as would The VKM. Bring in Doug Basham and The Damaja, and stick a bunch of older tag teams together. Abyss and AJ Styles were once NWA World Tag Team Champions, so seeing them get together to prove themselves again could be fun. Re-hire Elix Skipper and stick him and Christopher Daniels back together. I believe Triple X only lost a match stating they couldn't challenge for the NWA Titles, again, so have them come roaring back for the TNA belts. Maybe have Tomko and Cage work together for a bit in there (with Tomko taking all the losses), and put tag wrestling over as a different beast to singles wrestling. Just because Cage and Tomko were NWA World Champion material (putting Tomko over as NWA Title material can kind of be a jab at the belt), doesn't mean they can do well in the TNA tag team division.