The Great American Bash (1991)


The Great American Bash was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Championship Wrestling. It was the fourth The Great American Bash event to be broadcast via pay-per-view and the event took place on July 14, 1991 at the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.
The original scheduled card of the event was heavily changed. Ric Flair was scheduled to defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Lex Luger in a steel cage match but Flair quit before the event and was replaced by Barry Windham. Luger defeated Windham to win his first world championship. The final bout of the show was a handicap steel cage match, in which Rick Steiner defeated Arn Anderson and Paul E. Dangerously.

Storylines

The event featured wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.
The card was originally to be headlined by a steel cage match between Ric Flair and Lex Luger for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, and this match was heavily promoted on WCW television but two weeks before the show, then-WCW Executive Vice President Jim Herd fired Flair over a contract dispute, stripping him of the title in the process. At the time, champions left a $25,000 security deposit that would be refunded to them once they lost the title. As Herd did not give Flair back his deposit, he retained possession of the belt and later brought it to the World Wrestling Federation, where he appeared with it on television. WCW had to commission a new world championship belt. However, the new belt could not be readied in time for the event, so the company was forced to improvise. A Championship Wrestling from Florida title belt that was in the possession of Dusty Rhodes was used and a metal plate with "WCW World Heavyweight Champion" was attached to the front.

Event

In the match, Lex Luger pinned Barry Windham, who replaced Flair, after a piledriver on orders from Harley Race. After the match, Luger turned heel and took on Race as his manager and Mr. Hughes as his bodyguard.
P.N. News and Bobby Eaton were scheduled to face Steve Austin and Terrance Taylor in a traditional scaffold match but on the day of the show, a "capture the flag" stipulation was added as the wrestlers were unwilling to perform a risky fall from the scaffold.
Dustin Rhodes and The Young Pistols faced The Fabulous Freebirds is a six-man elimination match.
The masked The Yellow Dog defeated Johnny B. Badd by disqualification when Badd's manager Teddy Long interfered to try to unmask Yellow Dog; had he done so, Brian Pillman would not be allowed to wrestle in WCW again.
The final match was originally supposed to pit The Steiner Brothers and Missy Hyatt against Arn Anderson, Barry Windham and Paul E. Dangerously. After Windham was moved to the title match following Flair's departure from WCW and Scott Steiner sustained an injury, the match was changed into a mixed tag team match pitting Rick Steiner and Missy Hyatt against Arn Anderson and Paul E. Dangerously. Before the match Dick Murdoch and Dick Slater forcibly took Hyatt backstage, turning the match into a handicap match, which Rick Steiner won.

Results

Dustin Rhodes and Young Pistols vs. Fabulous Freebirds eliminations