Search for NWA belts and you will find far more championships than you expected. Not two or three, but dozens: national titles, regional titles, tag team titles, television titles, junior heavyweight titles, several of them with almost the same name. That is not confusion on the seller's part. It is what the National Wrestling Alliance actually was.

One alliance, many promotions

The NWA was never a single company. It was an association of independent promoters, each running his own territory, who agreed to recognise one world champion between them. Everything below that world title stayed local.

So the Mid-Atlantic promoter had his own championships. So did the Georgia promoter, the Kansas City promoter, the Portland promoter, the Amarillo promoter. All of them ran under the NWA banner, which is why all of those belts are NWA belts — and why two completely different championships can carry almost identical names.

This is the single most useful thing to understand before you start collecting. When you see an NWA United States Heavyweight belt and an NWA Western States Heavyweight belt, you are not looking at variations of one title. You are looking at the top prizes of two different regions.

The lineages people collect

World Tag Team. The most contested category, because several territories ran a championship under that name at the same time. Tag wrestling was the backbone of most NWA cards, and these belts were on television constantly. The NWA World Tag Team replica in brass is the usual starting point.

National Heavyweight. This one came out of the Georgia territory and was positioned a step above the purely regional titles without being the world championship. Collectors like it because the design is distinct from the world title rather than a smaller version of it.

The National Heavyweight belt is one of the more recognisable NWA plates that is not the domed globe.

Television. Several territories ran a Television Championship, defended in matches shown on their weekly programme rather than at the arena shows. They tend to be handsome, mid-sized belts. The NWA Television Championship in brass covers this lineage.

United States Heavyweight. Best known from the Mid-Atlantic territory, where it was the belt held by wrestlers on their way to the world title, and it survived the territory era by being absorbed into later promotions.

Regional heavyweight titles. Western States, Central States, Pacific Northwest and others. These are the deep-collection belts — less familiar, often more interesting, and the ones that tell you someone actually watched the territory rather than reading about it.

Junior Heavyweight. A long-running championship with a serious lineage and a following in its own right, particularly among fans of the technical style.

How to build a collection that makes sense

Two approaches work, and mixing them is what leaves people with a wall of belts that has no story.

The first is to collect by territory. Pick the region whose television you actually watched, or whose tapes you have gone back to, and get its top singles title, its tag titles and its television title. Three belts that belonged together on the same show read far better than six belts from six places.

The second is to collect by tier: the world title plus the championships that fed into it. That gives you a visual ladder, and it is the approach that suits a display case rather than a wall.

A note on condition and scale

NWA belts from this era were built to be carried, not admired, and the good replicas reflect that. Expect heavier plates and thicker leather than a modern belt of the same size. The regional titles are generally smaller objects than the world championship, which is worth knowing if you are planning a display and assuming they will all hang at similar width.

Everything above, along with the world title designs, is in the NWA belts collection.