NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship

Template:Short description Template:Confused Template:Infobox pro wrestling championship The NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling championship sanctioned by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). For the majority of its existence the title was promoted by Mexican promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), where it was known in Spanish as the Campeonato Mundial Semi Completo de NWA. It began as an official National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) title and was given to the NWA's Mexican affiliate, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL, later CMLL), to control. The title was also promoted in NWA Hollywood Wrestling until Hollywood Wrestling's closure in 1982. The title remained under the control of EMLL even after EMLL pulled out of the NWA and changed its name to Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. Due to its history, it was considered one of the most important titles in EMLL/CMLL. As it was a professional wrestling championship, it was not won legitimately; it was instead won via a scripted ending to a match or awarded to a wrestler because of a storyline. The official definition of the light heavyweight weight class in Mexico is between Template:Convert and Template:Convert, but this was not always strictly enforced.

The first champion was Gypsy Joe, who won the title on November 6, 1952. In 1957 the NWA stripped Frank Stojack of the title for lack of NWA-mandated title defenses, but Stojack kept the physical belt and defended the title for over a year. After Stojack was stripped of the title, the NWA executive board decided to give Salvador Lutteroth and Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre control of the championship in 1958. The first champion under Lutteroth's authority was Dory Dixon, who had worked for EMLL for many years. During the late 1970s and early 1980s the title was also defended in the Los Angeles area; after the 1980s, the title was only defended in Mexico.

In March 2010, Blue Demon, Jr., the president of NWA Mexico, sent letters to CMLL, telling them to stop promoting the NWA-branded championships since they were not part of the NWA. NWA Mexico had previously tried to reclaim the three NWA-branded championships promoted by CMLL, but was ignored by CMLL. The promotion did not directly respond to the latest claim either; the NWA Welterweight Champion, Mephisto, commented, simply stating that the titles belonged to CMLL. Finally, on August 12, 2010, CMLL debuted the new NWA World Historic Light Heavyweight Championship and returned the old title to NWA. In 2013, NWA Mexico crowned its first recognized World Light Heavyweight Champion, with Súper Nova winning the vacant title. Súper Nova has not defended the title since 2014, with the championship being de facto retired.

There have been a total of 65 reigns shared between 40 wrestlers. Ray Mendoza has held the Championship the highest number of times with six title reigns; Gory Guerrero's two reigns combined come to 1,963 days, the highest total of any champion. Roddy Piper is the champion with the shortest reign, 2 days; while the longest title reign belongs to Frank Stojack with 1,573 days.

Reigns by combined length

Key

Symbol	Meaning
†	Indicates the current champion
¤	The exact length of at least one title reign is uncertain, so the shortest possible length is used.
+	Indicates that the date changes daily for the current champion.

Rank	Wrestler	No. of Reigns	Combined Days
1	Template:Sortname	2	Template:Sort
2	Template:Sortname	6	Template:Sort
3	Template:Sortname	5	Template:Sort
4	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
5	Tarzan Boy	1	Template:Sort
6	Atlantis	1	Template:Sort
7	Black Warrior	2	Template:Sort
8	Lizmark	Template:Sort	Template:Sort
9	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
10	Template:Sortname	2	Template:Sort
11	Rayo de Jalisco, Jr.	1	Template:Sort
12	Jaque Mate	1	Template:Sort
13	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
14	Shocker	Template:Sort	Template:Sort¤
15	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
16	Template:Sort	2	Template:Sort
17	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
18	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
19	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
20	Vampiro Canadiense	1	Template:Sort
21	Template:Sortname	Template:Sort	Template:Sort
22	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
23	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
24	Súper Nova	1	Template:Sort
25	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
26	Cien Caras	1	Template:Sort
27	Template:Sortname	2	Template:Sort
28	Adorable Rubí	1	Template:Sort
29	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
30	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
31	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
32	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
33	Pirata Morgan	1	Template:Sort
34	MS-1	1	Template:Sort
35	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
36	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort
37	Template:Sort	2	Template:Sort
38	Template:Sort	1	Template:Sort
39	Template:Sort	2	Template:Sort
40	Template:Sortname	1	Template:Sort

Footnotes

• The NWA endorsed another NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship in New Jersey in 1997 and 1998, referred to as the "New Jersey version"; this short-lived title was not connected to the CMLL version.

See also

• List of National Wrestling Alliance championships

References

General source for title changes before 2000

[G] -

Specific

External links

• Template:Official website (Archived)
• NWA Title Histories