Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialWhy the WWE Great American Bash PPV Should Return

Why the WWE Great American Bash PPV Should Return

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Every August, we hear about how SummerSlam is coming up and it will be “the biggest party of the summer.” Sometimes, it is. Other times, it isn’t, and we’re left wondering how the second-biggest (supposedly) event in WWE’s calendar could end up feeling lackluster.

This year, WWE also introduced a new pay-per-view name with Great Balls of Fire. We’ve all spoken about the ridiculous name and theme, with myself even suggesting alternative flame-related titles they could have gone with.

But in the process of doing that article and looking at the way the WWE pay-per-view schedule was lining up to be, I found myself reflecting quite a bit on three WCW events which have been lost to the sands of time that I feel could and should make a comeback, but in hybrid form.

I’m talking, of course, about The Great American Bash, the Bash at the Beach, and Beach Blast.

It’s strange that I’m itching for this gimmick to return as I’m not particularly fond of many of the ideas circling it.

For example, I was always firmly on WWE’s side of the Monday Night Wars, so while I did watch WCW as often as I could, I don’t have the same fond memories of their events the way I do with WWE’s past shows. I can tell you who I watched Survivor Series 1997 with but there are times I forget that War Games was in Fall Brawl and not a separate event. There’s no nostalgia I’m clinging on to and no brand association attachment where I just want to see my childhood come back like I do with King of the Ring.

For that matter, I’m not even that big of a fan of summer in general!

It’s an unpopular opinion and I’m certainly the weird one compared to normal people, but I’m not the beach type. Most people would love to go on vacation to the Bahamas, lay out on the beach on a hot, bright day and just do nothing. To me, that’s boring and uncomfortable as hell. Give me a day where it’s misty and cloudy out and I need a coat on rather than one where I’d be in agony without sunblock and a fan.

But these past few years, SummerSlam has been in Brooklyn and it feels like WrestleMania’s outdoor venues are more “summery” than the stuff we get during the actual summer months, which just feels wrong.

WWE is bright, colorful, bombastic, energetic and fun and they have this gimmick sitting right under their noses that checks off a lot of boxes they like marketing themselves as, but they aren’t doing anything with it.

For a company that prides itself on being extremely patriotic and such, there was a missed opportunity this year to take advantage of bringing back the Great American Bash event instead of Great Balls of Fire.

Yes, technically, Raw’s pay-per-view is happening on July 9th instead of Independence Day, bu that hasn’t stopped them from using the Bash name before so long as they were hovering around the date. Five days after July 4th is much closer than they’ve ever gotten in the past while it was under WWE’s banner, as from 2004 to 2009, they ran the show on June 27th, July 24th, July 23rd, July 22nd, July 20th, and June 28th.

I’m not even the biggest flag-waving “USA! USA! USA!” guy in any room, but we’re not playing to solely my likes and dislikes. We’re marketing to a demographic that eats that stuff up and folks like Vince McMahon are even very gung-ho about that same idea.

But why stop with the red, white and blue replacing the absurd Great Balls of Fire name? That’s already an upgrade, but we can do better.

One of the complaints people say quite often when you ask what they miss about old school WWE versus nowadays is that every single event feels exactly the same. The pay-per-views are structured like slightly longer episodes of Raw and SmackDown, WrestleMania is the only program that gets a different set and stage, and it all tends to bleed together.

Can you tell me what’s different about Backlash from Battleground other than the particular matches on the card? Not every event needs a gimmick match like Elimination Chamber or Hell in a Cell, as that gets sloppy, but if nothing will differentiate Payback from No Mercy, why not just go the UFC route and call it “WWE PPV #205” and “WWE PPV #206” at some point?

SummerSlam isn’t even an outdoor venue. They don’t do the Summer Skin photoshoots with the women’s division anymore. They won’t even let fans toss a beach ball around without confiscating it and getting the crowd to boo.

So let’s have some fun and change things up a bit. Let’s combine the Great American Bash with one of WCW’s other events, Bash at the Beach.

Originally known as Beach Blast for a two-year stint, Bash at the Beach was always one of the more interesting sets in my mind as it took a simple theme and went with it unapologetically. In 1995 in particular, they were ambitious enough to actually hold the event on Huntingdon Beach, California.

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Trying that again would be unrealistic. Not only would there be security concerns, but the seating, the weather, and a myriad of other problems would get in the way of the simplicity WWE likes to operate out of.

But that doesn’t stop them from decorating the stage when they go on the UK tour, does it? If that’s the case, what stops them from doing something similar to what the other set for Bash at the Beach / Beach Blast used to look like?

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In a way, it’s silly, but there’s also a value to having something feel different so you get a refresher and you don’t feel like you’re watching the exact same pay-per-view twice a month, particularly as WWE has a tendency to rerun the matches where you’re seeing the same two guys feud for up to three events back-to-back.

There used to be a time where the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring had a regal feel to them, Halloween Havoc had its pumpkins and ghosts and such, and the closest thing to monotony was when In Your House would just keep the same house set. At times, it would be too over the top ridiculous, like the Gobbledy Gooker from Survivor Series, but this is professional wrestling—we expect there to be a little bit of cheesiness embraced.

Nowadays, the closest thing we get to that is the graphics for Money in the Bank promos or when Raw goes to Las Vegas and they feel like pulling out the roulette wheel once every 3 years.

The title would be too long, but if we had some “Great American Bash at the Beach Blast” sand and waves themed event going down this week, I have to imagine that would be better than what we are getting: Great Balls of Fire—the event with the dick-shaped logo and the ’50s diner graphics, referencing a song and a time frame the younger audience has no attachment to and finds silly in a bad way. A nine-year-old is not going to be excited about something that reminds him of that Happy Days show even his father is too young to have watched as a kid, but the beach is something very universal and beloved. Plus, all that 50s flashback stuff goes out the window as soon as the event begins since the stage will be the same one they use for Raw and SmackDown anyway!

By no means would this suddenly spike the ratings to new heights, but it’s the type of adrenaline shot in the arm that might at least act as a catalyst for putting a few more smiles on people’s faces rather than the mundane same old/same old we’re bored with.

More ideas to help freshen up the product while also bringing back classic ideas people can be nostalgic about helps to liven things up and break up the monotony while appealing to both younger and older crowds for different reasons.

In an era where people complain that the wrestlers have no gimmicks, everybody looks the same, every event has the same matches, every show runs into the next one and none of it feels special anymore, it wouldn’t have hurt to bust out the fireworks, the patriotic pride, the summer theme and the pomp and circumstance that would come with Great American Bash (at the Beach) for July 9th.

Or, we could just pay Jerry Lee Lewis some money to use his song, right?

 

What do you think about the idea of bringing back this classic WCW event? Drop your thoughts in the comments below to keep the discussion going!

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