Well, here’s a tough one. Even though Impact Wrestling had control of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for almost five years, listing the five best champions during that period is proving difficult.
This is because two of the champs on this list held the title multiple times with several of those reigns being most of the year and one reign stopping eighteen days short of a year.
Let’s dive in and find out who were the top five NWA World Heavyweight Champions of the TNA Years.
A.J Styles (3x NWA World Heavyweight Champion)
Of course, Styles would sit at the top of this list. A.J Styles first won the belt in June 2003 with the reign running until October of that year and being sandwiched between two reigns from our next entry.
Actually, each of Styles’ reigns come after defeating number two on this list. Of the champions on this list, Styles’ three reigns generated the highest number of watch-worthy matches of anyone.
Jeff Jarrett (6x World Heavyweight Champion)
Jarrett’s reigns were extremely polarizing with most feeling that he was on a Triple H streak or that he was living out some boyhood dream of being the NWA World Heavyweight Champion…six times.
I know when I first caught TNA Impact on Fox Sports South, I was tired of seeing Jarrett with the belt all the time. Mind you, other wrestlers won the title. It’s one of those things where if you see it so often, it seems like a lot of the reigns are longer than they actually are or that there were more reigns in general.
Double J had a couple of banger matches in his six reigns. I mean he’d better had some dope reigns, he had six times with the belt and a boatload of matches. Plus, Jeff Jarrett is true old-school veteran who could work with most opponents.
It would be puzzling that he held the belt so many times and just generated stinkers. Then again, he was a shareholder in the company as well as one of the founders.
Christian Cage (2x NWA World Heavyweight Champion)
After leaving WWE, Cage arrived in Orlando and was immediately in the mix of things. He did not seem out of place in the company and really busted his ass against up-and-comers and veterans alike.
Christian Cage is similar to Jarrett in that he can work with anyone of any style, size, or ability and produce a watchable match at the minimum. He could also hold it down on the mic.
Was this a big fish in a small pond tenure? Yes. Does that diminish how enjoyable his two reigns were? No. As a matter of fact, these reigns showed why Cage was a workhorse at this time while you might not have noticed in WWE because of how inconsistently and slowly he was booked at different times.
When a wrestler is on the receiving end of that kind of booking and they have the ability to go further, people stop caring about their potential.
Raven (1x World Heavyweight Champion)
In the summer of 2005, Raven had a brief reign as champion, holding the belt from June until September. However, this was the best thing for Raven at that time as he was facing opponents that he could really jam with and produce some exciting bouts.
Yes, they were all mostly brawls. You are correct, they were bloody and sometimes spotty. However, they were also a ton of fun to watch for two reasons: you had Raven, one of the icons of extreme wrestling with the symbol of traditional wrestling around his waist.
Also, this extreme ne’er-do-well was defending the belt under Raven’s Rules or other stipulations in most of his few defenses. Outside of that, you wouldn’t miss or notice Raven’s reign since it was so brief and early in Impact’s 19-year history.
Ron Killings (2x NWA World Champion)
Now known as R-Truth, Ron Killings’ first reign was historical as it was the first time a Black wrestler won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship after Bobo Brazil turned refused the title in 1962 because Buddy Rogers claimed to have a groin injury.
It’s best not to get into Rogers’ reign because 1961 and 1962 were murky and had three unrecognized reigns—the other two being Killer Kowalski and Bruno Sammartino.
As for Killings, being given an opportunity for the title from Ricky Steamboat because they both knew what it was like to be refused or delayed their shot because of their race was pretty cool but overlooked because this was two months after the company formed.
Those early weekly shows were all on PPV and very few got to experience them at the time. What also worked about the first reign is that Ron Killings straddled the X-Division and the World title picture, so he brought some daring do to his matches that were eventually outclassed by former Georgia indy scene rival A.J Styles.
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