For the non-grappling fans, the National Wrestling Alliance was a collective organization of various pro wrestling promoters across the country, as well as Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, at different times. They paid dues that supported the board and met annually to decide who would be their world champion, who then toured the member promotions, taking on the local stars, to "pop" the box offices and increase the local drawing power. Some promotions were bigger than others and offered a better product than others and, thus, had more say in the organization. It pretty much fell apart, in the mid-80s, with the national expansion of the WWF.
The WWF was originally the Northeast, only, promoted by the McMahon family, ranging from Maine to Washington DC. It promoted in the largest population centers and the biggest regular arenas, like Madison Square Garden. It was a place to make money. In 1982, Vincent K McMahon (the son) bought out Vincent J McMahon (the father) and started to expand beyond their traditional borders. They raided talent from several promotions, especially the AWA and Jim Crockett Promotions, in the Carolinas, as well as Gerogia and Florida. They then bought tv time to show their programs and got slots on USA Network; and, for a year, on WTBS. The caught the mass public's attention with Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, a cross promotion with MTV and related stuff, leading to the first Wrestlemania supercard. They have been the top dogs, ever since, rather like Marvel becoming the top, by the 1970s, after securing new newstand distribution, in the mid-60s.
The AWA was based in Minneapolis and promoted in the Midwest and Great Plains, to parts of the West Coast and Winnipeg, in Canada. They also had relationships with Japanese and European promotions. They were started by top star, Verne Gagne, who had been a national star on the Dumont Network, in the 50s, as the US Heavyweight Champion, behind Lou Thesz, as the NWA World Champion. Gagne worked with the Omaha-based promoters and then bought into the Minnesota promotion and eventually bought part of Chicago, giving him territory from Illinois north to Minnesota, then West to Northern California, eventually absorbing the San Francisco promotion, after it went out of business.
The WWA, in Indianapolis was the Ohio Valley territory, other than Detroit and parts of Ohio, which were promoted by The Sheik, Ed Farhat. The promotion was owned by wrestlers Dick the Bruiser, who had political connections in Indiana, through hi mother, and Snyder was a top football player and wrestler (and Bruiser also played in the NFL). Their best days were the 60s and early 70s and they co-promoted Chicago, with Gagne and the AWA. They were cheap, though, and anyone worth a damn went elsewhere, like Bobby Heenan did (he started out there) or came there to wind down their career and just work occasionally, like Moose Cholak.
Nick Gulas promoted the Nashville, TN and surrounding areas. He once promoted all of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, but, Jerry Jarret built up the western end of Memphis, Louisville, Ky, Evansville, In, and parts of Arkansas and Mississippi and split off from Gulas, who was too focused on making his son a star, when he didn't possess the talent. He was gone by the mid-80s.
Puerto Rico started regularly promoting in 1973, with a lot of talent that had worked for the Northeast (then called the World Wide Wrestling Federation) and then developed their own local stars, including promoter/top babyface Carlos Colon, who had worked for the WWWF. His son, Carlito, worked for the WWE and appeared on a few episodes of the Netflix GLOW tv series, as one of Carmen's brothers.
Canada had major promotions in Toronto, Montreal, Nova Scotia, Calgary and Vancouver, as well as some smaller outfits.
Mexico had Empressa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), later renamed Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, which started in the late 30s, and featured such masked wrestlers/icons as El Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras, who were also big movie stars, in Mexican horror films. There was also the UWA, which promoted out of Naucalpan, with lots of shows in bullfight arenas. They were out of business by the mid-90s. A rival, AAsistencia, Asesoria y Administracion de Espectaculos (AAA) started up in the early 90s, when booker/promoter Antonio Pena broke away from the more traditionalist EMLL/CMLL and took much of the younger talent, like Konan and featured young other up and comers, like Rey Mysterio Jr, La Parka, and Juventud Guerrera, who would work in the US, for WCW, in the late 90s.
Japan had All-Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling, then some smaller groups and several short lived promotions that got a lot of attention. There was also the IWE, in the 70s, who worked with the AWA and other foreign promotions to import talent. In the 90s, you had a bunch of promotions, like FMW, IWA Japan and Big Japan, doing "deathmatches, with exploding rings, barbed wire-wrapped rings and other dangerous gimmicks, as well as several "shoot" promotions, who tried to make things more realistic and provided the template for the Japanese end of Mixed Martial Arts, except they were still working the matches, towards a pre-planned finish. They just connected harder with punches and kicks and stayed away from co-operative moves. Some of them decided if they were going to get hit that hard, they might as well have real fights, which led to the legit MMA promotions, in Japan, like Shooto, Pancrase, and Pride, while some, like RINGS, started out as worked fights and finished up with real fights.
The UK had a long tradition of wrestling, in a mostly realistic and technical style, with a few more flamboyant figures and were a staple of Saturday afternoon/evening tv, on ITV, alongside World of Sport. They eventually lost tv and then were overshadowed by the WWF, in the late 80s. Europe had promotions in France, German & Austria, with other shows in various countries, including Italy and Greece. Otto Wanz promoted Austria and Germany, with big annual summer tournaments, with talent from all over, including people like Steven/William Regal, Fit Finlay, Leon "Bull Power" White (aka Big Van Vader or just Vader, in WCW and the WWE).
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's grandparents promoted Hawaii and shows in Samoa and Singapore, in conjunction with New Zealand promoter Steve Rickard, while his father, Rocky Johnson, wrestled in various territories, including the WWF, in the mid-80s, Memphis, California and Oregon, Hawaii and Canada (he was Canadian). That is what you see (in a very fictionalized version) on Young Rock.
And, as Baron Von Raschke said, "Dat is all der people need to know!"
