The AWA World Heavyweight Championship was a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

world heavyweight championship promoted by Paul Bowser in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. The title was created by Bowser after

Gus Sonnenberg Gustave Adolph Sonnenberg (March 6, 1898 – September 9, 1944) was an American football player and professional wrestler of German descent and World Heavyweight Championship (Original), World Heavyweight Champion. As a wrestler, he was National ...

, who had beaten Ed Lewis for the original World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship in 1929, was stripped of recognition as champion by the

National Boxing Association The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is an international professional boxing organization based in Panama. The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded i ...

. Browser continued to recognize Sonnenberg as champion and named his championship after the "American Wrestling Association" governing body, which hitherto did not actually exist. Rival promoters, including

Jack Curley Jack Curley (July 4, 1876 - July 12, 1937), born Jacques Armand Schuel, was a sports promoter of the early 1900s. He managed several high-profile boxing events around the turn-of-the-century and he also established professional wrestling as a vi ...

, countered by forming the

National Wrestling Association The National Wrestling Association (NWA) was an early professional wrestling sanctioning body created in 1930 by the National Boxing Association (NBA; now the World Boxing Association, WBA) as an attempt to create a governing body for professional ...

and its

NWA World Heavyweight Championship The NWA World's Heavyweight Championship is a men's professional wrestling Professional wrestling championship#World championships, world heavyweight championship owned and promoted by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), an American professiona ...

. During Don Eagle's second reign, splinter titles were created by regional promoters in Chicago and Ohio. Bowser abandoned the championship later in Eagle's reign, while he was rendered inactive due to injuries in November 1952.

Title history

AWA World Heavyweight Championship (Boston version)

Splinter titles

AWA World Heavyweight Championship (Chicago version)

AWA World Heavyweight Championship (Ohio version)

Ohio-based promoter

Al Haft Albert C. Haft (November 13, 1886 – 10 November 1976) was a wrestler (both professional and amateur), wrestling and boxing promoter and wrestling trainer who was a prominent promoter in the United States from the late 1910s until the 1960s, run ...

created a splinter version of the title after recognizing Don Eagle's loss to Dr. Bill Miller on May 1, 1952 as a title change. The change was not recognized by Bowser. That title continued until 1954 when incumbent Buddy Rogers was stripped of the title.

Footnotes

References

External links

{{Portal bar, United States
AWA World Heavyweight Championship (Boston)
at Pro Wrestling Historical Society

at Pro Wrestling Historical Society

at Wrestling-Titles.com World heavyweight wrestling championships Professional wrestling in Boston