The Great Eight: Top 8 NWA/WCW United States Champions

As promised, here is the article I thought I already did! The United States Championship didn’t start as a single championship. There were regional versions of the belt throughout the NWA. But we will be focusing on the MACW title that debuted in 1975. It is the only surviving United States Championship from that era, and the one the current title can be traced back to.

The United States Championship was used to test the waters for up-and-coming talent. In its long history, it has been held by many future World Champions. Not to mention the men who held it, who could have been World Champions but never got the chance.

So, let’s look back at the first 25 years of the championship, as we celebrate the top eight NWA/WCW United States Champions!

Fun Facts:

From 1975 to 2001, there were 91 reigns across 52 individuals.

Raven had the shortest reign, only holding it for a day.

Lex Luger has the most days as champion (950 days) as well as the single longest reign (523 days).

Ric Flair holds the record for most reigns with six.

Ranking Explanation:

As with all championship rankings, I put the most importance on longevity and total number of reigns. The longer they keep the title on you, and the more they have you get it back, the more faith the company has in you to sell tickets.

After that, it is the quality of matches, and finally, how well the wrestler elevated themselves and the title.

Plugs

I don’t use social media, but you can follow me on Spotify, where you’ll find playlists covering every decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. As well as several genre-specific playlists.

Disclaimer:

This is my list; if you don’t like it or have a different list, awesome! Please share your own list and opinions in the comments section. I welcome open discourse about this wacky art we all love. It is an art form, so it is subjective; we all have our opinions on it, and all of them are valid. So, if you want to share your thoughts and opinions, don’t insult others for their opinion. There is already enough negativity in the world; let’s not add to it. And with that, on to the list!

The List

Honorable Mentions:

Harley Race, Steve Austin, Dustin Rhodes

8: Blackjack Mulligan

Blackjack Mulligan is probably better known today as the father of Barry Windham and the grandfather of Bo Dallas and Bray Wyatt. Before all that, he was a top hand throughout the country. He spent the 1970s as a top challenger to Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, and André the Giant. He would also team up with Ric Flair to win the MACW version of the NWA World Tag Team Championships.

But what brings him to this list is his time spent as the NWA United States Champion. While Harley Race was the first, Mulligan’s first reign with the title really solidified it as a top prize. During his time as champion, the title surpassed the MACW Heavyweight Championship as tthe op regional championship in MACW. If you were the United States Champion, you were a threat to the NWA World Champion.

Mulligan’s size and rough and rugged style of wrestling made him hard to beat, and his matches with Paul Jones, Bobo Brazil, Ricky Steamboat, and Mr. Wrestling gave the fans more than their money’s worth every night.

With most of his time as champion being spent in the 1970s, many of his matches are lost to time. Wrestling was all about the big house shows, with TV being a tool to get people to buy tickets. And with a lot of the footage owned by the WWE no longer being easy to access, it makes it hard to properly rank guys like Mulligan. I do think he is deserving of his spot on this list, though, and feel like he is often overlooked by fans today.

7: Wahoo McDaniel

Much like Mulligan, much of Wahoo Mcdaniel’s prime work was in an era where house shows reigned supreme. And unlike many wrestlers who portrayed Native Americans, McDaniel was an actual member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Also like Mulligan, McDaniel was a football player before turning to pro wrestling. He was trained by Dory Funk Sr. while playing for the Houston Oilers, and then debuted in the WWWF after getting traded to the Jets in 1964.

After having successful runs in the WWWF, CWF, NWA Texas, and the AWA, he would make his way to the MACW. He had a legendary feud with Johnny Valentine and his son, Greg Valentine.

It was in the early 1980s that he would win his first United States Championship from Roddy Piper, and go on to feud with Abdullah the Butcher, Sgt. Slaughter, and a return feud with Greg Valentine.

McDaniel was not only a great representation of what it meant to be the United States Champion. He also provided an authentic representation for Native American fans. And while most of his best work is lost to time, he deserves his spot on this list.

6: Nikita Koloff

The first two men on this list will forever be linked in the minds of fans from the late ’80s. Koloff and Magnum had one of the hottest feuds in the business at the time. And if it wasn’t for his car accident, Magnum had future World Champion written all over him.

But we will get to Magnum in a second. Koloff was two years into being The Russian Nightmare and was one of the biggest heels in MACW. With his fellow “Russians”, Ivan Koloff and Krusher Khruschev, he would run roughshod over most of the roster.

By 1986, he was ready to prove he could make it to the top of the NWA. Coming off a World Championship match against Ric Flair, he would start a Best of Seven series with Magnum T.A. for the vacant United States Championship.

The two would end up tied going into the final match, and it would be Koloff who would walk out as champion. Shortly after, he would beat Wahoo McDaniel to unify the United States Championship with the NWA National Heavyweight Championship.

Koloff was being primed for a feud with Ron Garvin going into the end of the year. But the injury to Magnum would change plans. Koloff would turn face and use his status as United States Champion to face Ric Flair again for the World Championship.

While chasing Flair, he would also defend the United States title against members of the Four Horsemen and Paul Jones’ Army. His reign would end just shy of 11 months, when he lost the title to Lex Luger in July of 1987.

Koloff is a great example of a wrestler using the title to prove he could hang at the top of the card. If he hadn’t stepped back from the business, I fully believe Koloff would have been a World Champion. He had the look, charisma, and talent to be a top guy.

5: Magnum T.A.

I already talked about how Mangum and Koloff are forever linked. So, let’s talk about the other feud that Magnum is known for. Tully Blanchard and Magnum had a year-long feud in 1985. The two men traded the United States Championship back and forth that year. With the blow off happening in a brutal I Quit Steel Cage match at that year’s Starrcade.

That match is one of my favorite matches of all time. I had it on a VHS that WCW put out for the Best of Starrcade. And I remember my 10-year-old self being blown away when I saw it the first time. The viciousness and brutality on display were unlike anything else on TV. (ECW wouldn’t get on TNN for another couple of years.)

The previously mentioned Best-of-Seven series with Koloff just further showed that Magnum was on track to be the NWA’s answer to Hulk Hogan. He had the rugged good looks, the in-ring talent, and the charisma to carry the NWA into the 1990s.

And then the tragic car accident ended his career. Magnum T.A. is one of the biggest What-Ifs in wrestling history. A 1990s WCW with T.A. on top, feuding with Flair and Rick Rude, while guys like Sting, Luger, Austin, and Dustin Rhodes worked their way up? Gods, that could have killed the WWF during their New Generation era.

While we never got to see his full potential, Magnum’s run with the United States Championship gave us a glimpse of what could have been. And it would have been great.

4: Rick Rude

Rick Rude had the total package. A great body, an abundance of charisma, great in-ring abilities, and he could draw heat like no other. Yet somehow, he was never considered a top guy. Yes, he held the WCW World Championship, but that was during the murky years when there was an NWA and WCW World Championship. So, he was still second-fiddle at best.

Rude may have only had one reign as United States Champion, but he used every second of his 377 days to show why he deserved to be on top. If he hadn’t been sidelined with an injury, he might have topped Lex Luger’s longest reign.

Rude gets the number 4 spot because of how hard he worked to elevate himself and the title. It is very similar to what he did with the WWF’s Intercontinental Championship. His reign also kicked off one of the best WCW stables in the Dangerous Alliance.

1991 WCW is often overlooked, but the Dangerous Alliance, with United States Champion Rick Rude leading them, gave us all some of the best wrestling TV from that era.

And with no disrespect to the rest of the stable, Rude had a lot to do with that. His feud with Sting and the WarGames match at WrestleWar were amazing. Unfortunately, as I said, Rude’s run was ended by injury. Even with it ending on a sad note, the entire run for Rude during this time is more than enough to put him on this list.

3: Roddy Piper

Most fans don’t know that before he showed up in the WWF, Piper was already a top star in MACW. He first cut his teeth in NWA Hollywood, Pacific Northwest Wrestling, and Georgia Championship Wrestling. He would also have a brief run in the WWF during 1979.

Debuting for MACW near the end of 1980. He would quickly beat Ric Flair for his first United States Championship. It was during this reign that the title would become the undisputed NWA United States Championship, when NWA San Francisco closed, causing their version of the title to be defunct.

Piper would have legendary feuds with Flair, McDaniel, and Greg Valentine. Valentine would be Piper’s opponent for the famous Dog Chain match. They would trade the title back and forth over the first half of 1983.

Piper’s gift of gab could talk anyone into an arena. He was one of those guys who made you forget it was just a gimmick. He felt like he was constantly on the edge of a mental break, and it helped to make all his matches and promos feel unpredictable and intense.

Piper is one of the best of all time, and every aspiring wrestler should spend a lot of time studying his work. And, to me, he is the biggest miss for never being given a run as World Champion. Either as a heel or face, Piper would have made the NWA or WWF a ton of money (more than he did in real life) as their World Champion.

2: Ric Flair

When you think of Ric Flair, you think of his 16 World Championship reigns. But he also holds the record for most United States Champions (even if the WWF doesn’t recognize his fourth and fifth reigns as different runs).

Flair has done a lot to tarnish his legacy in the past 18 years. Something no one can take away from him is that he was The Man during the 1980s NWA. But before that, he had already become the first five-time (five-time, five-time, five-time, five-time) United States Champion.

And 13 years before their classic trilogy, Flair and Steamboat were tearing it up in the undercard for the United States Championship. I don’t think I need to say much about Flair’s abilities. We all know he was one of the best to ever do it on the mic and in the ring. And his time as United States Champion helped to hone those skills on his way to the top.

He would have great feuds with Steamboat, Mr. Wrestling, Jimmy Snuka, Greg Valentine, and Roddy Piper. And then, almost 20 years later, he would put on an underrated match with Eddie Guerrero to win his sixth and final United States Championship.

Flair’s legacy is his 16 World Championship reigns, but the time he spent as United States Champion deserves more love than it gets.

1: Lex Luger

Based on last week’s comments, this placement is no surprise to anyone. Luger may not have had everything needed to be a long-term World Champion. His look and ring presence were more than enough to make him a great secondary champion.

I don’t think anyone is under the impression that Luger was some great wrestler. But he was more than capable and could put on good matches with the right opponents. And if you put him in there with someone who could carry him? You could actually get a great match.

Winning his first United States Championship in a Cage match from Nikita Koloff was a sign that the company was behind him. Getting it another four times, and then holding it for 523 days? Showed everyone that Luger was being primed for a top spot. This was proven right when he vacated the title in 1991 after winning his first World Championship.

Again, Luger is never going to be your pick to lead your company, but prime Luger brought in the fans. Women and kids loved him, and isn’t that what you want in a champion? Without the pressure of being the top guy, he was able to excel at the top of the undercard, helping to prime the top contenders for the World Championship.

Preview:

Tune in next week when we cover the top eight NXT Stars to look out for.