A history of The Bash

June 29, 11:24 PMPro Wrestling ExaminerMark Satrang

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      The WWE Bash 2009

Last night’s WWE The Bash pay per view was the nineteenth installment in an event originally christened The Great American Bash way back in 1985. What has now become a fairly inconsequential part of the WWE pay per view calendar originally started as the brainchild of the legendary “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes when he was the booker for the National Wrestling Alliance’s Jim Crockett Promotions.

The first Bash was a stand alone supercard in 1985 booked by Rhodes. The main event saw Rhodes winning the NWA World Television Championship from Tully Blanchard while Ric Flair and Nikita Koloff got the semi-main event spot for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The show did feature other top ‘80s NWA standouts like The Andersons, The Road Warriors, The Koloffs and Magnum TA.

In 1986 the concept of the “Great American Bash tour” was created. The 1986 tour featuring thirteen events spanning the east half of the country with Ric Flair defending the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at each stop. He battled through both Road Warriors, both members of the Rock & Roll Express, Ronnie Garvin, Magnum TA, and Wahoo McDaniel before losing the belt to Dusty Rhodes on one of the final stops. Rhodes later explained in his autobiography that the Bash tour concept was to mimic a music tour, and even went so far to so have some of his country music buddies like Waylon Jennings and David Allen Coe perform mini-concerts at each event.

The 1987 tour followed much of the same format as the previous year but this run introduced another of Rhodes' big concepts: The WarGames.  WarGames is a match that featured a covered cage enclosing two side-by-side rings. Two teams of four or five men entered the cage in regular intervals. The only way to win the match is by having on the opposing wrestlers submit. The original two WarGames matches were featured on this tour with Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering, beating Ric Flair and his Four Horsemen at both stops.

By 1988, the event became a stand-alone PPV supercard, much like what is seen today. Flair was the World Champion for the next three events, successfully defending the NWA Championship against Lex Luger in ’88 and Terry Funk in 1989 before dropping the belt to Sting in 1990.

In 1991, the show would reach an all-time low that was maybe only matched by the WWE’s version in 2004. Just weeks before Bash ’91, then WCW head honcho Jim Herd fired Flair, then the reigning and defending WCW/NWA World Champion. Flair took the now famous “Big Gold Belt” with him, leaving WCW to scramble to find a new main event and a new championship belt. It was decided that Lex Luger and Barry Windham would fight for the vacant WCW Championship, using an old outdated Title belt as the prop. The fans completely turned on the show from the onset and spent the whole time chanting for Flair. The rest of the matches didn’t do them any favors either, as a terrible scaffold match and bad gimmicks like El Gigante, Oz, Black Blood and Big Josh littered the undercard. This PPV to this day is still considered one of WCW and wrestling in general’s all-time worst supercards.

Bill Watts was in charge of WCW during the 1992 Bash and it had a significantly different look and feel. The majority of the card focused on the NWA Tag Title tournament and featured quality matches from legitimate wrestlers like Steve Williams & Terry Gordy, Japanese stars Hashimoto & Hase, Jushin “Thunder” Liger & Brian Pillman and an assortment of solid WCW talent like Rick Rude, Ricky Steamboat, Nikita Koloff, Steve Austin, Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes. The other notable moment was the new prototype for a successful monster villain, Big Van Vader, beating Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

The Bash then lie dormant until 1995. By this point Eric Bischoff was starting his rise to power in WCW and used The Bash as a marquee pay per view event.

The 1995 event was fairly uneventful as Ric Flair and Randy Savage headlined the event in a grudge match while Sting and Meng fought for the US Title on the undercard. The show would really pick up in 1996 as this was the monumental event where Scott Hall & Kevin Nash showed up, and Nash powerbombed Eric Bischoff off the entrance stage, which was the catalyst that started WCW’s most famous creation – the new World order. It also featured the debuts of former pro football players Kevin Greene & Steve McMichael in a match against Arn Anderson & Ric Flair where McMichael turned on Greene, joined the 4 Horsemen and became a full-time pro wrestler. The card also had the now infamous Falls Count Anywhere” match between Chris Benoit and Kevin Sullivan, and the mainstream American debut of Rey Mysterio, Jr.

By 1997, the WCW-nWo war was in full swing and featured Diamond Dallas Page and Randy Savage in part two of their year-long blood feud and Kevin Greene’s return to defeat McMichael in the blowoff to a feud a year in the making. The story was much the same in 1998 as WCW and the nWo were still battling each other and the same guys like Hogan, Savage, Roddy Piper, Sting and The Giant were on top of the cards.

By 1999, Kevin Nash was the lead booker for WCW and naturally made himself World Champion at the show. Also on the show new acts like The West Texas Rednecks, The Triad, The Filthy Animals and The Revolution were featured.

Great American Bash 2000 had the dubious distinction of being the last WCW produced Bash and had then WCW booker Vince Russo’s sticky fingerprints all over it. The show was held at the peak of the New Blood-Millionaires Club angle and featured wacky stipulations and goofy mismatches. There was a two-on-one Asylum match (think the UFC Octagon), a Boot Camp match, an Ambulance match, a Best of Five Tables match and the wonderfully awful Human Torch match between Sting and Vampiro. Needless to say, it was not the way the Bash should have gone out.

When WWE decided to pick up the mantle of the Great American Bash in 2004 as a way to add to their already overcrowded PPV schedule, there were high hopes for the Bash’s re-incarnation. Unfortunately the 2004 version was nothing like what people expected or hoped for. The show was headlined by Eddie Guerrero defending the WWE Championship against a newly-renovated and at the time, severely over-pushed John “Bradshaw” Layfield. Bradshaw ending up winning the belt in a match that saw Guerrero tap an artery and literally bleed all over the ring and everyone in it. The Bradshaw victory was met with a severe backlash by fans worldwide. The show also featured the ridiculous Undertaker-Dudley Boyz handicap match that saw Undertaker “murder” Paul Bearer in a vat of concrete and the SmackDown brand’s mid-card talent was so weak at the time that the PPV undercard was littered with unproven characters winning squash matches. This was not the way to reinvent the brand name.

On paper the 2005 event looked much better but the in-ring work still proved the show to be a dud once again. Heidenreich and mystery partner Road Warrior Animal won the Tag belts off of hot new tag team MNM as a way to cash in on the new Road Warriors DVD that had just come out. Undertaker “killed off’ the Arab-American character Muhammad Hassan, making it the second year in a row at the show that Undertaker “killed” a character. The Eddie Guerrero-Rey Mysterio match was overshadowed by the ridiculous “Eddie is Rey’s son’s real father” storyline. JBL once again found himself in the main event, this time challenging Batista for the World Championship, in match he won by disqualification.

By 2006 expectations were set pretty low for the Bash PPV, and WWE’s Wellness Policy caused many issues and suspensions that proved to be the downfall of the Bash this year. The Fit Finlay-William Regal-Bobby Lashley US Title match was dropped to a one-on-one between Finlay and Regal when Lashley couldn’t compete due to “elevated liver enzymes.” The same liver problems took Super Crazy out his match for the Cruiserweight Championship against Gregory Helms and Great Khali was replaced by Big Show in his “Punjabi Prison” match versus Undertaker. Plus the big Batista-Mark Henry blowoff match that was scheduled was sidelined a week before the event when Henry went out with a knee injury and was replaced by Ken Kennedy. Four of the seven advertised matches were changed either shortly before or on the day of the show, instantly setting the card back.

In 2007 once again a primary match was changed last minute when then World Heavyweight Champion Edge was injured just days before the pay per view. He was forced to vacate the Title, which was then won by The Great Khali in a 20-man battle royal. Khali then defended the Championship against Batista and Kane in a triple threat match at the pay per view with no build up. Plus Hornswoggle, a little person, won the Cruiserweight Championship and effectively buried the entire cruiserweight division. However in a nice nod to the past, Dusty Rhodes himself stepped out of retirement to battle Randy Orton in a Bullrope match, one of Rhodes’ old specialties in his heyday.

Last year’s event actually went off without a hitch as WWE put together an eight-match card full of solid contests that saw many new Champions crowned and all the big stars of the day represented.

It is often said that Vince McMahon doesn’t like to fully promote anything he didn’t help create, which may explain why this year’s event name was merely dropped to The Bash. Regardless The Great American Bash, in name and theory anyways, is a great way to honor the legacy and tradition that the NWA, WCW and Jim Crockett Promotions built.