International Working Agreements
Abroad, the AWA had working agreements with Japanese promotions International Pro Wrestling (1969 to 1980), then All Japan Pro Wrestling (1980 to 1988, although the relationship was strained in 1986 by the AWA Title debacle surrounding Stan Hansen), and, near the end, New Japan Pro Wrestling.
On June 29, 1986, in Denver, Colorado, Hansen refused to lose the AWA World Title to Nick Bockwinkel prior to a tour of Japan and left with the championship belt. Hansen argued that he was booked as AWA Champion in Japan and was therefore fulfilling his commitment. Gagne disagreed and awarded the AWA Championship to Bockwinkel, using one of the tag team title belts on a temporary basis. Gagne threatened legal action if Hansen continued to keep the belt and it was returned to the AWA as a result (although according to Nick Bockwinkel on The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA, Hansen had run over the belt with his truck before returning it).
The AWA also had a brief relationship with the European promotion Catch Wrestling Association, through which its promoter, wrestler Otto Wanz, was given a brief AWA World Title reign in 1982.
Read more about this topic: American Wrestling Association
Famous quotes containing the words working and/or agreements:
“... in the working class, the process of building a family, of making a living for it, of nurturing and maintaining the individuals in it “costs worlds of pain.””
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (b. 1924)
“The Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than a hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward uniform legislation and agreements between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our people always.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)