The first territory to secede from the National Wrestling Alliance was the Minneapolis territory that was owned by the former amateur wrestling great Verne Gagne. As the area's top star, he used the title switch between Eduardo Carpentier and Lou Thesz from 1957 in Chicago to his benefit, as did other promotions which sought to break away from the NWA, in that Carpentier did the job to him, enabling Gagne to bill himself as an uncrowned champion. At the time of establishing the territory's identity, Gagne issued a challenge to the NWA champion and when the given time frame had elapsed he declared himself the AWA World Champion.
   

     The promotion centered around Gagne ad nauseum, though to his credit he did drop the strap at various times, and the fact that he was a great worker is unquestionable. But he never gave Billy Robinson a run with the title because he suspected that when the time came for Robinson to lose the belt back to him, that Robinson, one of the toughest wrestlers ever around, would not only screw him and not do the job, but that he might use his technical acumen to embarrass him. So the closest we ever got was a main event in Chicago's Comiskey Park in the 1970's, and a story plot in the movie " The Wrestler, " (the original one, not the Mickey Rourke movie) which really captured the flavor of AWA wrestling in the 1970's.

     The top wrestler in that time period was Nick Bockwinkle, who was sought after by numerous promoters in the NWA and even offered a run as NWA champion, but he refused it, insisting that he liked it where he was. He was considered the best of the 3 major world champions at the time.

    The AWA was legendary as the home of tag-teams like Dick the Bruiser and The Crusher, Nick Bockwinkle and Ray Stevens, Harley Race and Larry Hennig, and it launched the careers of Ric Flair, Rick Steamboat, Greg Gagne, Curt Hennig and was a haven for Olympic stars like Brad Rheingans, Ken Patera, and Chris Taylor. The rise of Hulk Hogan saw the company's business going up, but Verne Gagne's refusal to give him the AWA strap caused Hogan to leave for bigger success in the WWF, and the territory began to slowly wither away for the rest of the 1980's.

     Gagne's refusal to change and have the company adapt to the changing wrestling business spelled the inevitable outcome for his promotion. But there were bright spots along the way, like an impressive roster that brought national exposure to the Road Warriors, the Freebirds, Scott Hall, the Midnight Rockers Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty, and Jeff Jarrett.
   

     To keep business going, the AWA had a television contract with ESPN, which they could have done so much more with, and they had a series of loaded shows, like the Superclash shows. Verne also was open to promoting shows with other companies, beginning with the St.Louis NWA office, which Verne had a percentage of ownership in, and frequent angles with the Memphis territory, which gave Jerry Lawler a run with the AWA Title and enabled them to co-promote with the Texas-based World Class office in a final stab at trying to stay relevant in the national wrestling scene. 

     The national expansion of Vince McMahon Jr.'s WWF proved to be too much in the end, as the AWA constantly had its talent raided, yet the only thing similar about the two companies was the gimmick of having a senile old man as the president, which saw the WWF's Jack Tunney make one bumbling decision after another, patterned after the AWA's Stanley Blackburn. 
   

     Ironically, the best exposure the company ever had was long after it had died, as news stations and cable programs would air the old footage of Minnesota Governor, Jesse " the Body " Ventura, who first came into the public eye in the 1970's as a wrestler who had a knack for talking and had some classic interviews.

     In 2008, many of the AWA ESPN telecasts were re-broadcast on the ESPN Classic cable network.