After the final Great American Bash was held by WCW on June 11, 2000, the event would not be held again due to the acquisition of WCW by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). After a four-year hiatus, however, the event was revived by WWE in 2004 until 2009 (the name of the final event being abbreviated to "The Bash"), and was also used as the title for a special live edition of SmackDown in July 2012. WWE's production of The Great American Bash was the 1st former WCW pay-per-view event to be revived by WWE.
History[]
The Great American Bash was invented by Dusty Rhodes, a prominent wrestler of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), who became a wrestler and booker of the NWA's Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). The first Great American Bash event was held by JCP on July 6, 1985 in Charlotte, North Carolina at the American Legion Memorial Stadium. It was broadcast on closed-circuit television. In 1986 and 1987, The Great American Bash was held as a series of events. The Great American Bash continued to be broadcast on closed-circuit television until the 1988 event, which was the first to be broadcast on pay-per-view (PPV). In November that year, JCP was purchased by Turner Broadcasting System and JCP was rebranded as World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
WCW continued to produce The Great American Bash under the NWA banner until WCW seceded from the NWA in January 1991. As such, the 1991 event was the first Great American Bash produced by WCW alone. After the 1992 event, WCW did not hold the PPV again until they revived it in 1995. It then continued annually until 2000. The 2000 event was the final Great American Bash held by WCW, as in March 2001, WCW was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in May 2002.
After a four-year hiatus, the event was revived by WWE in 2004. To coincide with the brand extension, where the promotion divided its roster into brands where wrestlers exclusively perform, the 2004 event was held exclusively for the SmackDown! brand. It continued to be held exclusively for SmackDown! in 2005 and 2006. Following WrestleMania 23 in April 2007, brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued, thus the events from 2007 to 2009 featured the Raw, SmackDown!, and ECW brands. In 2009, the event was renamed as The Bash. It would be the only held under this name, as well as the last held on PPV, as the event was replaced by Fatal 4-Way in 2010.
In April 2011, WWE ceased using its full name with the WWE abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism. WWE then revived The Great American Bash in July 2012 under the event's original full name. This event was held as a special episode of SmackDown. After another eight years, WWE again revived the event, this time for the NXT brand as a two-part special episode of NXT. The event was scheduled to again be held as a special episode of NXT in 2021, thus becoming an annual event for NXT.
