Originally posted by TJ Vermeer
Come to think of it.. The NWA/WCW title split reminds of the WWE/Raw tag title split..
NWA title -> billed as WCW (and WCW International) title -> NWA title revived in a tournament..
WWWFE tag title -> billed as 'World' tag title -> WWWFE tag title revived in a tournament..
These situations are not exactly the same thing.
The WWE tag title on SmackDown!
is considered a new championship. When she first announced the tournament, Stephanie explicitly said that the winners of it would be the "first" champions. Meaning that the original WWF/E tag team title is the current World tag team title on RAW, only referred to as that now to make it coincide with the shows top singles championship being billed as just the World heavyweight title.
As for WCW, they may have referred to the reigning NWA World champion as the WCW World champion, but the fact remains that Flair continued to hold the NWA title for approximately two months after he was stripped of the WCW title. So it's not the case that they were the exact same title like it is with the WWF/World tag team title.
Oh, and they never actually billed the NWA champion as the "WCW International" World champion either because the NWA stripped Flair of title recognition upon WCW's withdrawal. After the court case ended, all WCW did was take the physical "NWA" championship belt (which they presented evidence that they had legal ownership of) and utilized it to create a completely new title. And that itself didn't even happen until a short time AFTER Rude won it at Fall Brawl. The so-called "title" match at that event wasn't even an actual title match. It was billed as being simply for the "Gold Belt".
