The NWA World Tag Team Championship is a world tag team title used by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) since 1992. The NWA established the championship as a nationally sanctioned title after NWA members had previously promoted separate territorial World Tag Team Championships under the same name. Those earlier championships had their own histories and aren’t part of the lineage that began in 1992.
A 16-team tournament was held with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) to crown the first champions. All eight first-round matches took place at Clash of the Champions XIX on June 16, 1992, in Charleston, South Carolina. Terry Gordy and Steve Williams defeated Larry and Jeff O’Day, while The Steiner Brothers advanced by forfeit after Miguel Pérez Jr. and Ricky Santana were unable to compete following a backstage attack.
Gordy and Williams faced the Steiner Brothers in a quarterfinal later that night and defeated them to advance. The remaining three quarterfinals, both semifinals, and the final were held at The Great American Bash on July 12 at the Albany Civic Center in Albany, Georgia.
Gordy and Williams defeated Ricky Steamboat and Nikita Koloff in the semifinals, while Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes defeated Hiroshi Hase and Shinya Hashimoto. Gordy and Williams then defeated Windham and Rhodes in the final to become the first NWA World Tag Team Champions.
Gordy and Williams entered the final already holding the WCW World Tag Team Championship after defeating the Steiner Brothers on July 5. Their NWA tournament victory gave them both championships, and the NWA and WCW titles began being defended together while remaining separate championships.
Windham and Rhodes defeated Gordy and Williams for both titles during a September 21 television taping, with the match airing on October 3. Steamboat and Shane Douglas followed by defeating Windham and Rhodes at Clash of the Champions XXI on November 18.
Steve Austin and Brian Pillman, known as the Hollywood Blonds, defeated Steamboat and Douglas during a March 2, 1993 television taping, with the title change airing on March 27. Arn Anderson and Paul Roma became the final team to hold both championships together when they defeated Austin and Lord Steven Regal, who replaced the injured Pillman, at Clash of the Champions XXIV on August 18.
WCW withdrew from the NWA on September 1, ending the arrangement between the two championships. Anderson and Roma lost recognition as NWA World Tag Team Champions but continued holding the WCW World Tag Team Championship until the Nasty Boys defeated them at Fall Brawl on September 19. The NWA championship was left vacant.
The title remained vacant until April 11, 1995, when the NWA held an eight-team tournament at the Dallas Sportatorium in Dallas, Texas. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express defeated Dick Murdoch and Randy Rhodes two falls to one in the final to become NWA World Tag Team Champions.
Their championship was held up after a June 26 match against PG-13 in Memphis, Tennessee. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express defeated PG-13 in a rematch on July 3 to regain the title, but their second reign ended on August 4 after Ricky Morton was suspended by NWA affiliate Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
The NWA then worked with IWA Japan to determine new champions through the NWA World Tag League. The round-robin tournament ran from November 27 through December 9, 1995, with Mr. Gannosuke and Tarzan Goto finishing level on points with Cactus Jack and Tiger Jeet Singh. Gannosuke and Goto defeated Cactus Jack and Singh in a deciding match on December 9 in Saitama, Japan, to win the championship.
Gannosuke and Goto’s reign ended after they left IWA Japan in 1996, leaving the championship vacant again. C.W. Anderson and Pat Anderson defeated the Fantastics on September 14 in Goldston, North Carolina, to become the next champions.
The NWA vacated the championship again in 1997 before beginning an arrangement with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express were awarded the title on January 12, 1998, and brought the championship onto WWF television as part of the company’s NWA storyline.
The Headbangers defeated the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express during the February 17 Raw Is War taping, with the match airing on February 23. The New Midnight Express won the championship on March 30 before losing it to the Border Patrol at an NWA event on August 14, ending the title’s run in the WWF storyline.
The NWA reached a longer agreement with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in 2002, giving the new promotion control of the NWA World Heavyweight and NWA World Tag Team championships. The Shane Twins held the tag team title when the arrangement began and vacated it on June 28.
A tournament was held on TNA’s July 3 weekly pay-per-view to determine the next champions. America’s Most Wanted defeated the Johnsons in one semifinal, while the Rainbow Express defeated Buff Bagwell and Apolo in the other. America’s Most Wanted were unable to compete in the final after being attacked backstage, leading AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn to take their place.
Styles and Lynn defeated the Rainbow Express to become NWA World Tag Team Champions. TNA continued using the championship as its primary tag team title for nearly five years while the NWA remained the sanctioning organization.
The arrangement ended on May 13, 2007, when NWA Executive Director Robert Trobich announced that the NWA had ended its agreement with TNA and withdrawn recognition from Team 3D as NWA World Tag Team Champions. TNA presented Sacrifice later that day and continued using the NWA championship belts during Team 3D’s scheduled title defense against Scott Steiner and Tomko, and the Latin American Xchange.
Team 3D won the match, but the NWA no longer recognized the championship as being under TNA’s control. Four days later, TNA unveiled the separate TNA World Tag Team Championship and awarded it to Team 3D, ending TNA’s use of the NWA title.
The NWA World Tag Team Championship remained vacant until July 8, when new champions were determined at an NWA Pro event in McAllen, Texas. Joey Ryan and Karl Anderson first defeated Incognito and Sicodelico Jr. in a three-team gauntlet, then faced Billy Kidman and Sean Waltman, who had received the later entry through a coin toss. Ryan and Anderson won the second match to become NWA World Tag Team Champions.
The NWA changed its published championship history on January 17, 2008, when it removed the five WCW-booked reigns from 1992 and 1993 and began listing the championship as having been established in 1995. Those teams had been recognized as NWA World Tag Team Champions when their reigns occurred, so the change altered the later record of the title rather than its original WCW-era history. By October 2014, the NWA’s published championship history was again listing the 1992 and 1993 reigns.
Control of the NWA changed in 2012 when the rights to the organization’s name and trademarks transferred to International Wrestling Corp., led by R. Bruce Tharpe. The previous membership system was replaced by a licensing model that allowed individual promotions to use the NWA name and championships.
The World Tag Team Championship continued under that structure and returned to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in 2013. Killer Elite Squad won the title on April 20 and carried it into NJPW, where the championship was defended regularly over the next two years.
The IronGodz defeated Killer Elite Squad at Power Struggle on November 9, 2013, in the first fall of a two-fall match that also included Tencozy. The first fall was for the NWA World Tag Team Championship, while the second was for the IWGP Tag Team Championship. Tencozy later won the NWA title in April 2014 before Killer Elite Squad regained it that October.
Billy Corgan’s Lightning One purchased the National Wrestling Alliance in 2017, with the change in ownership taking effect on October 1. The licensing agreements from the previous NWA structure expired as Corgan took control of the organization and its championships.
The Heatseekers held the NWA World Tag Team Championship during the final weeks of the licensing system, but their reign ended when the title was vacated at the end of September. The championship remained vacant as the NWA reorganized under Lightning One.
The title returned at the Crockett Cup on April 27, 2019, in Concord, North Carolina. The NWA held the tournament with Ring of Honor and announced that the winning team would also become NWA World Tag Team Champions.
Villain Enterprises, represented by Brody King and PCO, advanced to the final and defeated Royce Isaacs and Thomas Latimer to win the Crockett Cup and the vacant championship. Their victory ended the vacancy that had lasted since 2017 and returned the NWA World Tag Team Championship to active competition under the NWA’s direct control.
