On this day in Pro Wrestling history on July 14, 1991, WCW aired ‘The Great American Bash 1991’ live on PPV from the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.
This WCW PPV event went down in history as the first one without Ric Flair, after The Nature Boy took his WCW World Heavyweight Championship and went to the rivaled World Wrestling Federation.
Originally Flair was scheduled to defend his World title against Lex Luger in the Steel Cage main event of the show. With Ric leaving only a few days before the show and taking the belt with him, WCW was forced to create a new World Heavyweight title belt, but since it wouldn’t be finish in time for the show, the company ended up using an old CWF (Championship Wrestling from Florida) belt with a new metal plate that read “WCW World Heavyweight Champion”.
Barry Windham ended up replacing Flair and wrestling Lex Luger in a Steel Cage for the – now vacant – World Heavyweight title.
Here’s the entire card (including the results) from that night:
Scaffold match
Bobby Eaton & P.N. News Def. Steve Austin & Terrance Taylor
The Diamond Studd Def. Z-Man
Ron Simmons Def. Oz
Richard Morton Def. Robert Gibson
Elimination match
Dustin Rhodes & Steve Armstrong & Tracy Smothers Def. Badstreet & Jimmy Garvin & Michael Hayes
The Yellow Dog Def. Johnny B. Badd
Lumberjack match
Big Josh Def. Black Blood
El Gigante Def. One Man Gang
Russian Chain match
Nikita Koloff Def. Sting
Steel Cage
WCW World Heavyweight Championship
Lex Luger Def. Barry Windham
Steel Cage
Missy Hyatt & Rick Steiner Def. Arn Anderson & Paul E. Dangerously
