12 Richest WWE Matches Of All Time

1989's WrestleMania V wasn't just up to that point the most-bought pay-per-view in WWE history. Scoring 767,000 buys, It outstripped every other supercard up to that point by upwards of 300,000 purchases, and remained the highest drawing 'Show Of Shows' until The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin just surpassed it deep into the money-spinning Attitude Era. Considering the substantially smaller audience even able to order shows at home ten years earlier, Hulk Hogan and The Macho Man deserve even more credit for convincing so many to part with the earnings to see them collide.

And unlike future WrestleManias, this card was all about the main event. WWE's formula at the time was to stack shows with a series of battles designed to give audiences a mere glimpse of the organisation's vast midcard in favour of saving television feuds for still-lucrative house shows.

Feature matches were few and and far between, but the Mega Powers' infamous explosion was broad-shouldered enough to carry the company's sterile Trump Plaza return. It was a mammoth payday well earned, too. Hogan and Savage's magnificent WWE Title arc had commenced in exactly the same building one year earlier, with Elizabeth's heartfelt tears in 1988 replicated by her heartbroken ones as newly-minted heel Savage chastised her en route to losing everything.