Clash of the Champions
US television program
Clash of the Champions is an American series of professional wrestling television specials that were produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) in conjunction with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). The specials were supercards comprising pay-per-view caliber matches, similar to the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) Saturday Night's Main Event series. The Clash of the Champions shows were famous for typically not airing commercials during matches even though many of these matches lasted 20 minutes or more.
The first Clash of the Champions was held on March 27, 1988, by JCP and was entitled NWA Clash of the Champions. Subsequent events had different subtitles, for example, Clash of the Champions II: Miami Mayhem, up until Clash of the Champions XVI: Fall Brawl 1991, which was the last event with a subtitle. JCP was sold to Ted Turner and renamed WCW in 1988, and WCW continued to air the events until 1997. The rights to Clash of the Champions now belong to WWE, which acquired WCW in 2001. In 2013, WWE revived the Clash of the Champions name for a special episode of their WWE NXT program.
History
Throughout 1987 and 1988, a bitter event scheduling war broke out between rival wrestling promoters Vince McMahon and Jim Crockett, Jr. On Thanksgiving night 1987, McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF) aired Survivor Series against Starrcade from Crockett and the National Wrestling Alliance, two pay-per-view (PPV) events on the same day.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Clash of the Champions” is uS television program. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Clash, Champions and television, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “uS television program” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4115547. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1991, 1997 and 2001.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Clash of the Champions”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Clash of the Champions primary sources, Clash of the Champions archive and Clash research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Clash of the Champions”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Clash of the Champions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.