10 Biggest Challenges WrestleMania Has Ever Faced
'Mania 36 isn't the only time WWE has gone in to a panic ahead of its biggest show of the year.
For WWE, WrestleMania is the be-all and end-all of its calendar.
Whether you're a WWE fan or not, it's hard to dispute that Vince McManon's sports entertainment juggernaut pulls out all the stops for its annual Granddaddy of Them All. Be it the biggest stars, the biggest match-ups, the biggest venues, or the biggest acts of pageantry and showmanship, there really is no show quite like WrestleMania.
This year, WrestleMania will be drastically different to anything we've ever seen before. Truth be told, who knows if WrestleMania 36 will even take place as planned during the first weekend of April. As the current climate of 2020 continues to change at a head-spinning rate, there are still so many question marks surrounding this year's Showcase of the Immortals.
Where WrestleMania is concerned though, this won't be the first time that McMahon and WWE higher-ups have faced adversity or have been faced with a huge challenge at this time of year - for while WrestleMania has proved to be a ludicrous success for WWE, it has also at times proved to cause the company plentiful headaches.
Here then, are ten such examples of times WWE has been truly tested by WrestleMania.
10. The "Sniper Threat" - WrestleMania VII
Going into WrestleMania VII, the then-WWF planned to hold the event in front of a crowd of 100,000 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Only that didn't happen, as the 1991 edition of the annual Showcase of the Immortals was moved to the Los Angeles Memorial Arena.
The official line given for this change of venue was due to the fear of a sniper attack on uber-heel Sgt. Slaughter. Remember, this is a Sarge who was fully in the midst of a villainous run in which he was portraying an Iraqi sympathiser at the peak of the Gulf War.
If WWE is to believed, this fear was completely and utterly genuine - and if that is indeed true, the threat of your top heel being assassinated live on PPV is clearly a major challenge.
Of course, the other school of thought from many on this is the fact that ticket sales were extremely slow for WrestleMania VII. That slow traffic on the ticket front meant the company's planned 100,000 crowd seemed extremely unlikely - and so the vastly smaller venue of the Memorial Arena was a far less embarassing home for the 16,000 people who were ultimately in attendance for 'Mania VII.