Verne Gagne is Awarded the AWA World Heavyweight Championship

Verne Gagne is awarded the newly-created American Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight championship. Having withdrawn from the National Wrestling Alliance, the Minnesota-based group of promoters issued a fictitious public challenge to NWA champion Pat O’Connor, and, following a 90-day period during which O’Connor nor the NWA “accepted” the empty challenge, Gagne was officially declared the AWA World Heavyweight champion. All total, Verne Gagne would win the AWA’s World title a record ten times over the next twenty-year time period.