NWA Hollywood Drops the NWA, or Is It the Other Way Around?

Is Hollywood better off without the NWA?
Graphics Credit: NWA

Some big news broke over the weekend at the NWA Hollywood tapings, in that the promotion was splitting with the National Wrestling Alliance. It will now be known as Championship Wrestling from Hollywood. There really wasn't a whole lot of detail about the reasoning behind it, except for blurbs about David Marquez not being too happy about the power structure changing hands to a group headed by R. Bruce Tharpe, noted in on the F4W site most notably. However, I did some digging and found something pretty interesting.

As it turns out, the decision wasn't Marquez's to make. According to Dr. Jerry Wiseman of the Charlotte Examiner reports that Tharpe and the NWA has sent Marquez a cease and desist on using the NWA name. Tharpe loaned Marquez $2,000 back when the promotion was on the verge of becoming the showcase for the alliance. When he called for the tab plus the interest and "other provisions", Marquez failed to pony up. Furthermore, Adam Pearce was advised against taking bookings in Hollywood. So yeah, this has turned into a real shitmire.

I can't comment with much clarity here as I do not have Marquez's side of the story. All I can really say is that it's another example of business decisions going awry in wrestling, which never happens. Wait, did I say never? I meant always.

It also looks like a convenient "out" for Marquez and his promotion from the NWA. Regardless of his culpability in defaulting on a loan, it's still a good idea for him to split because the ruling body, as I've been saying on here for awhile now, is archaic and needs to be allowed to die. I mean, yeah, Tharpe deserves his money back here, and Marquez should pay up if everything about this story is correct. That being said, I'm not sure he should be rushing back to get in, even if Tharpe gets ousted tomorrow and he's offered the head.

Times have changed, and interpromotional cooperation now should feel more, I don't know, cooperative instead of mandated by old white guys in suits. Besides, Championship Wrestling from Hollywood has a much better ring to it, if you ask me.