NWA Calls Out AEW for Copying Its National Title
AEW’s “National Championship” rollout feels less like homage and more like retaliation.
All Elite Wrestling rolled out a new “National Championship” this week, and it’s hard not to miss how closely it mirrors the NWA’s long-standing National Heavyweight Title, in name, tone, and presentation. AEW president Tony Khan framed the new belt as a throwback to the territorial days, nodding to legends like Dusty Rhodes and Paul Orndorff, as if reviving a lost tradition. The problem is, that tradition never died. It’s still alive in the National Wrestling Alliance, where Mike Mondo currently holds the same-named title with a direct lineage going back to 1980.
That first championship, introduced under Georgia Championship Wrestling, was won by Austin Idol, who remains involved in the modern NWA as a manager and on-air personality. There’s real continuity there. So when AEW unveiled a “National Championship” of its own, it didn’t come across as a respectful homage. It came off like a swipe.
Mondo didn’t hide his frustration. “Let me be clear,” he said. “There is only one NWA and there is only one prestigious National Championship that holds legit lineage and has for decades. So to Tony Khan or anyone else confused, here’s the legit title, with the company it belongs to, and the legit National Champion. My name is Mike Mondo.” His bluntness cut through the nostalgia-heavy spin AEW was selling, because to the people who actually carry and defend that belt, it’s not some abstract tradition to evoke, it’s an active championship with history behind it.
AEW’s presentation leaned hard into that same heritage, describing the new belt as something that “harkens back to the territorial era” and emphasizing that it would be defended across multiple promotions. The design, the name, even the talking points all implied lineage without saying it outright. That kind of borrowed nostalgia might look harmless, but when another company still owns and defends the original title, it crosses into something closer to appropriation.
NWA talent Bryan Idol went even further, calling AEW’s move “the lamest thing in the history of wrestling.” He accused Khan of “trying to use the NWA National Championship as one of their belts and pretending as if we don’t currently have the originator and original champion Austin Idol and the current National Champion Mike Mondo on the active NWA roster.” Idol also argued that AEW’s timing was no coincidence. He said, “This is retaliation for AEW already currently losing a lawsuit to NWA over the use of intellectual property, so now they are trying to stir the pot.” The NWA first used “Shockwave” as a digital series in 2020 and opposed AEW’s attempt to trademark the name this past June, citing prior rights. That dispute was still winding its way through filings when AEW suddenly announced a “National Championship” of its own.
It’s not hard to see why the NWA might take it personally. AEW didn’t explicitly say its new belt continues the NWA lineage, but the presentation was built to make fans feel like it did. Wrestling has always borrowed from its own past, but there’s a difference between honoring a legacy and co-opting one. The NWA’s National Championship isn’t some relic gathering dust in a museum. It’s an active, defended title with a history that’s still being written. AEW acting like that lineage is free to rebrand for pay-per-view is tone-deaf at best and cynical at worst.
AEW’s defenders will argue it’s just a name, that “National Championship” isn’t proprietary. Maybe so, but the NWA has been using that name for more than forty years. The belt’s first champion still appears on its shows, and the current one can trace the title’s lineage in a straight line. When Khan and Tony Schiavone start invoking that same history to sell a new AEW belt, they’re implying a legitimacy they haven’t earned.
There’s always a fine line between tribute and theft in wrestling, but AEW didn’t blur it, they stomped right across. The new “National Championship” may shine under the lights, but it’s built on borrowed history, and everyone paying attention can tell whose it was first.