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The Great American Bash

professional wrestling event

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia

Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0

Source revisionSep 21, 2026

Entity authorityQ1074552 ↗

Source-derived summary

The Great American Bash is a professional wrestling event held during the summer and has been produced by the American promotion WWE since 2004; since 2020, it has been held as an annual event for WWE's developmental brand, NXT. Created by Dusty Rhodes, the event was originally established in 1985 and was produced by the National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA) Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP). It originally aired on closed-circuit television until 1988 when it began broadcasting on pay-per-view (PPV), and later that same year, JCP was rebranded as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), which seceded from the NWA in January 1991.

In March 2001, the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF) purchased WCW. In May 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the promotion revived The Great American Bash as their own annual PPV event in 2004. It was held exclusively for wrestlers from WWE's SmackDown brand from 2004 to 2006 before brand-exclusive PPVs were discontinued in April 2007. In 2009, WWE renamed the event as The Bash, which was also the final Great American Bash broadcast on PPV, as it was replaced by Fatal 4-Way in 2010.

The event returned for one-night only in July 2012 under its original full name and was held as a television special, airing as a special episode of SmackDown. In July 2020, the event was again revived and became an annual event for WWE's developmental brand, NXT. From 2020 to 2022 and in 2024, it aired as special episodes of NXT, while in 2023 and since 2025, it has aired as a livestreaming event.

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. In 1986 and 1987, The Great American Bash was held as a series of events.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Great American Bash” as professional wrestling event. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2020, 1985, 1988—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2004. The account is most persuasive where Great, American and Bash can be independently traced.

Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as professional wrestling event. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1074552. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2020, 1985 and 1988.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for

Event chronology
Institutional context
Locating named record creators

Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

Establish the record: confirm the title “The Great American Bash”, its source revision and the description used here.
Expand the search: follow The Great American Bash primary sources, The Great American Bash archive and Great 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 “The Great American Bash”?
Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?

Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

The Great American Bash history →The Great American Bash primary sources →The Great American Bash archive →Great research →American research →Bash research →professional research →

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Great American Bash” 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.