Damn Fine Wrestling: Is AEW becoming the new NWA? Submitted by Damn Fine Wrestling on 12/09/2020 at 11:13 AM
In 1948 the National Wrestling Alliance was created as a governing body for a handful of independent wrestling promotions across the United States. With this, territories that were owned by said affiliated promoters would fall under the NWA umbrella.
What if this is happening again?
Kenny Omega's appearance on Impact Wrestling was a bit of a mark out moment for yours truly. I have had a history with NWA-TNA back as far as interviewing Dixie Carter in 2005 (as well as other talent). So to see (what I will always adoringly just call 'TNA') come this far to have a Top-Tier wrestling champion in Kenny Omega on their show to tease a likely working relationship will go down as a turning point in professional wrestling history.
But what if AEW goes bigger? What if Impact Wrestling isn't the end game for Khan and The Elite?
First things first -- can two separate promotions exist under the same umbrella? Well it sort of works already with WWE NXT, and while production is nearly identical, you could argue that Raw and Smackdown are two different "brands" under the Stamford blanket. Of course this is for merely branding purposes, as at the end of the day, Raw, Smackdown and NXT are all properties of Vince McMahon.
Let's have a Sophia Petrillo moment together: Picture it; All Elite Wrestling isn't just a high-octane product on Wednesday nights, but is a new governing body of many independent promotions across the country. Executives from Impact Wrestling, Shimmer, OVW, MLW, PWG, and even the current NWA help make up this governing body. New Japan, Stardom, and AAA are overseas partners. I purposely left out Ring of Honor, as they are sort of an outlier in my opinion.
This would mean All Elite Wrestling would definitely need to have a second network show, which may even be dedicated to featuring these promotions. We already know that talent shifts around from promotion to promotion as is -- in fact, AEW Dark regular Brian Pillman Jr. currently holds the Ohio Valley Wrestling championship, and is a past Major League Wrestling champion. Both promotions have sent over, or currently has talent working in AEW.
We've seen WWE try a similar approach with promotions like Evolve and Progress, but at the end of the day, Vince is going to be Vince. It's hard to fully trust a promotion to be creatively free under the watch of the Titan Towers. As long as an updated version of the NWA is a money printing machine, a "new" alliance of sorts could not only reinvigorate the wrestling industry, but pull away even more fans from WWE so diehards can see what life is like outside of the carefully crafted WWE Bubble.
This could, in theory, create the healthiest possible working environments for the talent, which should be priority #1 for every individual in this daunting industry. A collective governing body that will put the interests of the talent first before massive profits would be a game-changer. Just think of the exposure and opportunity that would be available to hundreds of pro wrestlers without the need to "make it" in WWE.
But alas, I may be getting ahead of myself. This working relationship with Impact could be a one-off (fantasy booking article for AEW Vs. Impact in the works!), and the umbrella of Indies promotions working with AEW is already a reality -- albeit an unofficial one.
What do you guys think? Follow my new poorly upkept Twitter page at twitter.com/BYSuckerPunch. You might even become my very first follower!
