Most Reigns
The NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic) was introduced by Jim Crockett Promotions on January 29, 1975. Gene and Ole Anderson, known as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, were announced as the first champions after winning a tournament for the vacant title. The tournament was a fictional explanation created for television, but the Andersons remained the first recognized champions in the title’s official history.
The championship served as Jim Crockett Promotions’ top tag team title. At the time, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) didn’t operate one exclusive world tag team championship across all of its member promotions.
Several territories used their own versions of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, and the Mid-Atlantic label separates this title from the versions used elsewhere.
Gene and Ole Anderson won the championship several times in its early years. Other teams who held the title were Wahoo McDaniel and Paul Jones, Wahoo McDaniel and Rufus R. Jones, Mr. Wrestling and Dino Bravo, Thunderbolt Patterson and Tony Atlas, and Ric Flair and Greg Valentine.
On April 5, 1978, Jim Crockett Jr. announced on the episode of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling that Flair and Valentine had been stripped of the title. He said they had failed to appear for scheduled defenses and had left other matches before a decision could be reached.
Paul Jones and Ricky Steamboat won the vacant championship on April 23, 1978, by defeating the Masked Superstar and Ken Patera in the final of a one-night, 10-team tournament.
The title went through several other vacancies and tournaments during the early 1980s. Gene Anderson suffered an injury in October 1981, and the championship was declared vacant that December.
A lengthy tournament followed in 1982, with Ole Anderson and Stan Hansen eventually receiving the title after Wahoo McDaniel and Don Muraco split before the final series. Anderson and Hansen later vacated it, and Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle were announced as the new champions in September.
Teams including Sgt. Slaughter and Don Kernodle, Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood, and Don Kernodle and Bob Orton Jr. held the championship during this period.
As Jim Crockett Promotions expanded nationally, the championship was held by teams including the Rock ’n’ Roll Express, the Midnight Express, the Russians, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham and Lex Luger, and the Road Warriors.
Turner Broadcasting purchased Jim Crockett Promotions in November 1988 and began operating the company as World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The championship continued under the NWA World Tag Team Championship name, with the Road Warriors, the Varsity Club, the Fabulous Freebirds, the Steiner Brothers, and Doom holding it during WCW’s early years.
WCW stopped using the NWA name for the championship in January 1991 and renamed it the WCW World Tag Team Championship. Doom remained champions during the change, allowing the title introduced in 1975 to continue under the new name.
This championship is separate from the NWA World Tag Team Championship established through an alliance-wide tournament in 1992. The two titles were later held and defended together for a short period, but they remained separate championships and followed different lineages after WCW left the NWA in 1993.
