Heavyweight boxing championship records and statistics only universally recognized form of a world championship until July 2, 1921, when Jack Dempsey became the inaugural NBA Heavyweight Champion. The growing popularity of boxing led to a birth of various regional sanctioning organizations, with each recognizing their own champion. The major governing bodies were the National Boxing Association, formed in 1921, the New York State Athletic Commission, found after the Walker Law legalized prizefighting in New York in 1920, and the International Boxing Union, created in 1911 in Paris in attepmt create a unified international governing body for professional boxing. Both NBA and NYSAC made then-lineal champion Jack
NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship connection to this original JCP/MACW championship. Overall, there were 60 reigns shared between 29 wrestlers. Fifteen of those reigns occurred while the title was called the "NWA Eastern Heavyweight Championship", while 46 occurred under the "NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship" name. The title had only one official vacancy, which occurred in July 1985. Jack Brisco and Wahoo McDaniel had the most reigns as champion, with six; Jerry Brisco and Rip Hawk had the second-most, with four. Ken Patera's second reign was the longest in the title's history, at 334 days; the Missouri Mauler had the second-longest, at 275 days. Johnny Valentine