Championship Wrestling Alliance

The Championship Wrestling Alliance (CWA) is the governing body for Llanowar’s two biggest professional wrestling promotions. The organization formed in 2008 when PCW Holdings Limited, the parent of Grand Prix Wrestling LLC, and ECW Limited, the parent of Stampede Wrestling LLC, signed a working agreement. The nuance that sets the CWA’s promotions, Grand Prix and Stampede, apart from other promotions is the fact that they feature women wrestling men directly for one set of championships because GPW’s roster is male-exclusive while Stampede’s is female-exclusive. The arrangement came about because Greyling Capital LP co-founded Grand Prix and Stampede with Michael Bach and Angela Bach, respectively.

History

Pre-working agreement

Grand Prix Wrestling

Michael Bach founded Grand Prix Wrestling with the help of former professional wrestler Alex Ruger, then of Greyling Capital LP, in 1998. They named the promotion’s governing body the Phoenix Championship Wrestling (PCW). While PCW sanctioned many titles throughout its existence, it only recognized three titles immediately prior to the working agreement with Stampede Wrestling; the PCW Championship -- held by Shri Khan, the PCW Tag Team Championships -- held by the New Age Outlaws (James Wyatt and Brian Earp), the PCW European Championship -- held by Mitchell Hart, and the PCW Llanoran Championship -- held by Kamehameha.

Stampede Wrestling

Stampede Wrestling was founded by former professional wrestler Angela Bach a few months after her former employer DragonGate, an all-female promotion, failed in 2003. However, she enlisted the help of Alex Ruger, just like her brother, Michael, had five years earlier, because she had no experience in promotion. They chose Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW) as the governing body’s name. The only titles ECW ever sanctioned before the working agreement with ICW were the ECW World Championship, last held by Usana, and the ECW Intercontinental Championship, last held by Kamala.

Post-working agreement

The day after the working agreement between ECW and ICW came into force signaled a change in direction for both companies because that Nitro saw the first direct competition between a male wrestler and a female wrestler. The agreement stated that all titles and pay-per-view events would receive CWA branding, ICW’s upcoming Mayhem event would be renamed Starcade, and every title would be defended in an intergender match at the event, including a match to unify.the ECW World Championship and PCW Championship into a new CWA Undisputed Championship.

After the event, the Undisputed Championship was held by ECW’s Usana, PCW’s New Age Outlaws remained the Tag Team Champions. PCW’s Goliath held the Intercontinental Championship, and ECW’s Shane McCoy held the European Championship.

Current champions