NWA National Title

[Americancyco]

OK whats the story with this one.

Hashimoto defeats Shawn Hernandez on 5-23 on a zero-one card in 4:43 in Tokyo, Japan.

That seesm to be the only clear part. In Japan they are announcing it as a title change with Hashimoto becoming the 48th champion. Stories also have Hashimoto claiming he doesn't want that worthless title he wants the NWA title.

Now it is also being reported that the title was not on the line and Hashimoto didn't win the title. What is going on?

[Americancyco]

The NWA has offically announced (on it's message board) that this was a none title match and Hashimoto is not and never was the National title.

Now this is interesting because the match was announced ahead of time for days as a title match. It was announced before the match as a title match and Hashimoto got the belt after the match.

It was reported in the Japaness press or papers as a title switch also. Now the nWA claims it never happened.

It seems to me Zero One screwed the NWA after what happened between Hasimoto and Severn back on May 19th with the NWA title switch to bring the belt back to the states.

Considering the match was a total squash with the NWA's 2nd highest champion being destroyed in under 5 minutes and losing the title, I think the NWA just said "It never happened. Hernandez is still the champ."

This is interesting because they only mentioned it on the message boards and not offically on the main page which many people have been asking about.

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

As you probably read on the other thread, we have more ceremonial stuff for the title match to make sure it is a title match, rather than just having ring announcer say it's a title match. According to the reports I got, NWA president Jim Miller was there, national anthems of Japan and the US were played, and the belt was returned to the referee before the match. After the match, Hashimoto grabbed the mic and said he didn't want the worthless title but wanted the world heavyweight title. Miller responded saying that Hashimoto doesn't deserver a world title shot yet but would send him the Canadian heavyweight champ next.

However, NWA still says it wasn't a title match.

[highpriest]

I would pay to see that matchup. Hashimoto/Spyder would be a good match. (That is saying alot because I don't pay to see anything normally lol)

[Rubio MHS]

It was a phantom switch. The NWA never recognized Harley Race's eighth NWA World Championship until this year.

[Dan Poutsma]

Originally posted by Rubio MHS
It was a phantom switch.  The NWA never recognized Harley Race's eighth NWA World Championship until this year.

I don't know what this has to do with the National title, but the NWA began recognizing the Flair-Race switches as "official" in the early 1990s.

And they were not phantom switches (if that's what you're in fact referring to). Race beat Flair in Wellington, New Zealand on March 21, 1984 and Flair regained the title two days later in Kallang, Singapore. Both matches were part of a sold tour promoted by Steve Rickard featuring performers from Jim Crockett Promotions. They weren't recognized until the early 90s because, at the time, Rickard did them as more or less a treat for the local fans and without NWA board approval.