5 Events that brought WWE to the brink of collapse

#3 The first WWE WrestleMania

The first WrestleMania was a celebrity-filled event that almost bankrupted Vince McMahon and WWE

In 1985, WWE hosted the first-ever WrestleMania event which featured the likes of Ricky Steamboat, Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper as well as celebrities Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper. The event now has over 30 years under its belt, having run every year since 1985. The event also saw The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff beat the US Express to win the WWE Tag Team Titles.

Elsewhere on the card, Andre the Giant defeated Big John Studd in a Body Slam Challenge and Wendi Richter defeated Leilani Kai for the WWE Women's Championship. Richter famously had rock star and wrestling fan Cyndi Lauper in her corner. However, all the attention was on the main event of the evening. Not only did the tag team match feature WWE Champion at the time, Hulk Hogan, but Roddy Piper, Jimmy Snuka, and Paul Orndorff were all at the top of the card.

Hogan's partner in the main event, Mr. T, was in the midst of his run in the popular TV show The A-Team as B.A Baracus. However, Mr. T wasn't the only celebrity involved in the main event of the evening as WWE went all out to make sure that WrestleMania was a massive wrestling event. The event saw Liberace as the special guest time keeper and championship boxer Muhammad Ali as the outside guest referee.

According to one of the organizers of the event, Vince McMahon spent large amounts of money to make sure the event was as big as humanely possible. McMahon had told people that if WrestleMania was not successful it would likely have caused his financial ruin and the end of WWE as a promotion.