10 Biggest Challenges WrestleMania Has Ever Faced

7. Clash Of The Champions - WrestleMania IV

Vince McMahon famously drove each and every possible piece of competition out of business as part of his quest to monopolise the wrestling industry. And one such piece of competition who McMahon butted heads with, was Jim Crockett Jr. and his Jim Crockett Promotions organisation.

Back in 1987, Vince made the cutthroat move of running the first ever Survivor Series PPV up against the NWA's Starrcade event. Not just that, but McMahon informed cable companies that if they carried Starrcade instead of Survivor Series - this was a time when only one live PPV could be offered at any one time - then they'd be refused access to any future WWF PPVs.

Following this underhand yet ultimately smart manoeuvre, Vinny Mac would then run the first ever Royal Rumble PPV up against the NWA's Bunkhouse Stampede show in January 1988. Desperate to find a way to strike back at Titan, Crockett decided to pull inspiration from McMahon's playbook and announce that the first ever Clash of the Champions special would air for free on the same day as WrestleMania IV.

Even though that first Clash featured a star-making Sting vs. Ric Flair bout and one of the absolute greatest tag matches in history with The Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics, the affect on WrestleMania was minimal.

The following year would likewise see WrestleMania V challenged by a Clash of the Champions VI event that was headlined by Ricky Steamboat defeating Ric Flair in a two-out-of-three falls offering, yet it had already become evident that it was a fruitless move to put these Clash outings in direct competition with the Showcase of the Immortals.

A Clash of the Champions would never again run opposite a WrestleMania, and the event soon became a B-level special that would ultimately be scrapped in 1997.

Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

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