The following is a historical overview television coverage provided the National Wrestling Alliance's territories. The NWA began in 1948 as a governing body for a group of independent professional wrestling promotions.
1948–1993
Promotional headquarters (A–M) Amarillo's Western States Sports aired an hour-long television program on KFDA-TV (Channel 10) each Saturday afternoon. The program aired in West Texas along with New Mexico and Colorado. It was hosted by Steve Stack. The program featured a combination of matches recorded in the KFDA studios in Amarillo, matches recorded at house shows, interviews, and clips of matches from other territories.
Buffalo, New York's National Wrestling Federation's show Championship Wrestling aired on Channel 43 in Cleveland on Saturday nights. Briefly a second show, All-Star Wrestling, aired on Sunday Mornings. That show was filmed in the studios of WUAB-TV in Parma, Ohio. The television hosts were Johnny Powers, Jack Reynolds, and Ron Martinez (son of Pedro Martinez). The film from each show was erased and reused to save money, hence few of the shows are available now on video or YouTube.
Calgary's Stampede Wrestling was the basis for a long-running weekly sports broadcast produced in Calgary showcasing many of the promotion's most popular wrestlers. Hosted by Ed Whalen most of its run, which went from 1957 to 1989, the series was syndicated around the world and reruns continue to be shown in some countries to this day. At the time Stampede was revived in 1999, a second Stampede Wrestling TV series was attempted, hosted by Bad News Allen and play by play commentator Mauro Ranallo, but it was short-lived and Whalen was not involved.
Chicago's Fred Kohler Enterprises Inc.'s first television program, Wrestling From Rainbo Arena, began airing on Wednesday evenings on July 10, 1946 on the regional television network WBKB. Hosted by Russ Davis, the program featured matches recorded in Chicago's Rainbo Arena. In 1948, Wrestling from Marigold began airing on the regional network WGN. In 1949, Kohler secured new television deals with ABC and WJZ-TV. Later that year, he reached a deal with the recently founded national television network DuMont. Wrestling from Marigold began airing on Thursdays and Saturdays in September 1949. The program was inexpensive to produce, and Kohler's membership of the NWA gave him access to some of the country's best performers. Wrestling from Marigold quickly became popular, with both broadcasts ranking amongst the top DuMont programs.
In Dallas, World Class Championship Wrestling's weekly shows were staged there on Tuesday nights until August 1978, then were moved to Sunday nights until the early '80s, and finally were held on Friday nights until the promotion's demise. In the early 1980s, WCCW began its hour-long weekly syndicated television show which introduced numerous innovative production techniques, many of which are still commonly used today. The promotion was also the first to use familiar rock songs as entrance music for its wrestlers. The show was syndicated across the United States, and at one point arguably scored higher ratings than Saturday Night Live.
By the 1950s Harry Light – along with his business partners Jack Britton and Bert Ruby – controlled professional wrestling in Detroit and Big Time Wrestling on WXYZ-TV Channel 7 was one of the most popular programs airing in Detroit. By the 1960s, the promotion was airing two to three television programs per week and staging weekly house shows at the Cobo Arena. The promotion's TV program was unique in that it would occasionally air local collegiate wrestling matches alongside worked angles, in a segment called "Am-Pro Wrestling".
In 1988 WCOV-TV owner David Woods bought the controlling interest in Southeastern Championship Wrestling out of Dothan, Alabama from Ron Fuller, and he renamed it Continental Wrestling Federation in a further attempt to compete with Vince McMahon and appear to resemble a nationwide promotion, even to the point of getting an odd national TV deal with Financial News Network. Their last TV episode aired on November 25, 1989. The promotion closed after their final show on December 6, 1989.