The event was established in 2016 and replaced Night of Champions in the late September slot of WWE's pay-per-view calendar.

That event had a theme in which every active championship on WWE's main roster during those years were defended; Clash of Champions was established on a similar concept.

[6] An event for 2021 was originally scheduled to be held on September 26 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

[9] The concept of Clash of Champions was that all active WWE championships available to each brand division featured at the event were defended.

[1] After brand-exclusive pay-per-views were discontinued in 2018 and after the establishment of two non-brand exclusive championships in 2019, every title available to each brand featured on the event were defended.

[6] With a total of 11 championships at the 2019 event, two titles were defended on the Kickoff pre-show to reduce the actual pay-per-view's runtime.