Following up from my last column, it looks like not Big Daddy V, but Mark Henry is the commonly labelled useless lump who is going to be in receipt of the big ECW ‘Main Event level’ push.

Oh well, good luck to him, and he’s another monster heel character who has come on in leaps and bounds since 2003 (shame he’s been employed since 1996, but oh well you can at least give him points for improving recently!}

With regards to this year’s draft’s similarities with past trends, they’ve ended up pretty much swapping the title belts around again, as they did in 2005, but the elevation of CM Punk and the movement of HHH to Smackdown are both gutsy moves that could reap big dividends in the future. Also it appears that WWE has started their usual moving of mid-carders and then releasing them days later thing, with Trevor Murdoch being the most recent casualty.

This column looks at the varying reasons that have resulted in the WWE version of ‘The Great American Bash’ (GAB) pay-per-view gaining a reputation as one of the most unanticipated events on the yearly wrestling show calendar.

PPVs, even with relatively poor build up, can still produce good results if entertaining matches are booked, but the WWE version of the GAB seems to have been continually dogged by unusual circumstances that have little to do with the usual booking/talent problems that critics use when slating the WWE.

The 2004 version was the second in a row of mediocre Smackdown PPVs following the excellently received Wrestlemania XX event. While RAW was on fire with the Chris Benoit and friends vs. Evolution summer series, Smackdown was left with a struggling Eddie Guerrero, unproven JBL, part-timer Undertaker and injured Kurt Angle to help it through the summer months.

Guerrero, by this point, was really feeling the responsibilities of being figurehead of the Blue Brand, and had reached a stage where he really no longer wanted to be Champion, actually asking to be relieved of the belt. While his previous PPV match with JBL had been a dramatic bloodbath, many fans still saw the former Justin Hawk as nothing more than an over-pushed former mid-card tag team wrestler, and the Great American Bash was another opportunity for him to prove them wrong.

Eddie and JBL went on to have the best match of the show, which went a long way to reinforcing Guerrero’s reputation as an incredible worker, while giving the beginning of JBL’s cowardly heel title reign exactly the right start that it needed. However, this match would be the only highlight of the card, and while Chavo Guerrero and Rey Mysterio Jr also produced a respectable bout, everything else was pretty dire.

In the wake of the Wrestlemania, Smackdown was left without previous main event star Brock Lesnar, and furthermore long-time workhorse Kurt Angle, and monster heel Big Show were also put out with injuries. To this end, WWE had to push relative fresh faces in order to salvage the brand.

This would have been a good idea, but unfortunately the people that management went about pushing were not up to the job. The Great American Bash clearly highlights this, as three out of eight matches featured ‘new’wrestlers; Luther Reigns, Kenzo Suzuki, and Mordecai – all three were mediocre, and coincidentally, all three were fired within a year. This show was also home to a four way match for the US title which went vastly below expectations.

Of the participants, Renee Dupree and John Cena were still really too green to do much at all without being carried, whereas Booker T and RVD were both clearly dogging it while sulking in the mid-card under the newly pushed JBL. If any one has read my previous column on this website on the Undertaker, they will know that I am a big fan of his recent work, but his role on this show was pure Wrestlecrap of the highest order.

The original plan was to have ‘Taker turn heel and be managed by Paul Heyman, but he wasn’t really feeling this. This led to the bizarre handicap main event of the Deadman against the Dudley Boys in what was a virtual squash, ending in ‘Taker winning and still burying manager Paul Bearer in cement (don’t ask!), while somehow still remaining a beloved babyface.

All of these factors combined to make the first Great American… WWE effort a very forgettable experience, especially when compared to what the WWE was churning out on the RAW side of things during this time.

WWE’s 2005 GAB offering would further go to show how events totally beyond the Federation’s (Entertainment’s??) control could ruin long term plans for Smackdown. Muhummad Hassan, perhaps WWE’s worst ever wrestler pushed to a main event level, along with a totally repugnant character, was scheduled to actually win the World Title over Batista at Summerslam in Washington DC.

While it is true that Hassan did receive loads of ‘USA’ heat from jingoistic xenophobic American crowds, it was more the sort of ‘go-away’ heat that does not draw money. No one was going to pay to see Hassan, and the fact that he was an awful promo and wrestler did not help. When this was coupled with the ongoing world events of 2005 WWE was placed in a poor position that was entirely of their own making, similar to the pushing of Iraqi Sympathiser Sergeant Slaughter as a Wrestlemania main eventer while the Gulf War was ongoing in 1991.

On 7th July 2005, London was attacked in a suicide bombing campaign, leading to much chaos and tragic loss of life. Two days previously, WWE had filmed an angle at the Smackdown tapings with Hassan’s manager Daivari essentially sacrificing himself for the cause and enabling balaclava-clad henchmen to beat down Hassan’s GAB opponent Undertaker, including an attack with extremist-associated piano wire. WWE could have bowed to public sensitivity and not broadcast the angle but went ahead and tried to anyway. It was blocked by Sky Television in the UK, and the tremendous backlash in the US led to network chiefs banning Hassan and his followers from television.

Thus WWE’s negative portrayals at a very sensitive time led to the absolute sabotage of not only their major match for 2005’s Great American Bash, but also put the rest of their summer plans in jeopardy as well. Hassan was essentially ‘killed’ live on PPV, with commentator Michael Cole assuring the audience that they wouldn’t be seeing him again…..

On top of this, a number of other aspects of the GAB 2005 PPV were unsatisfactory. The overpushed and bland Orlando Jordan gave Chris Benoit one of the dullest matches of his career, a problem that would be solved with Jordan’s twenty-something second loss to Benoit at Summerslam. Booker T and the soon to be departing Christian again went through the motions of a boring mid-card match, while hot prospects for best new tag team in years MNM lost the Tag Titles to pseudo-nostalgia act, the washed up Road Warrior Animal and Johnny Heidenreich.

Rey Mysterio Jr and Eddie Guerrero again provided the in-ring highlight, in what was still the worst match of their 2005 series Finally the World Championship match between Batista and JBL, while never destined to be a work rate classic, was further hampered by JBL deliberately being uncooperative in order to make Batista look bad for making anti-Smackdown comments earlier in the year.

While the problems surrounding the 2005 GAB, although not of a ‘normal’ nature, were certainly of WWE’s making, the series of events surrounding the 2006 event were arguably beyond their control, depending on how you look at the Wellness Policy.

In the wake of Eddie Guerrero’s November 2005 death, WWE publicly instituted a welfare programme for its workers. While this was put in place from late 2005 onwards, throughout early 2006 it didn’t seem that much was being done. Enter the run up to the 2006 GAB…..

In the weeks before the event matches advertised included Undertaker v. The Great Khali, Bobby Lashley v. Finlay v. William Regal, Mark Henry v. Batista, and Gregory Helms v. Super Crazy. Two weeks before, Khali, Crazy, and Lashley were all taken off the road with elevated liver enzymes (a common symptom of steroid abuse) while Henry tore up his knee live on Saturday Night’s Main Event.

Substitute opponents were quickly moved in to fill the spaces, but the build up to the PPV, already shortened because of WWE’s enhanced event schedule, was hopelessly compromised. Big Show against Undertaker was probably actually better than the original match would have been, due to Khali’s shortcomings as a worker, and the Regal/Finlay match was rendered boring to the crowd due to both being heels at the time.

On the plus side, the main event of the newly crowned King Booker against World Champion Rey Mysterio Jr went ahead as scheduled and was a good match. The London and Kendrick against Pitbulls and Helms against new opponent Matt Hardy matches were both choice efforts. Furthermore, the Batista v. Mark Henry match ended up being changed to Big Dave against Mr. Kennedy, a much better match that was enhanced by Kennedy’s massive blood loss.

All in all, the 2006 Great American Bash could have been a lot worse, and while there were certainly a great deal of circumstances outside of WWE’s control surrounding the event, the talent involved did a great job of pulling together and rescuing the show from the depths of mediocrity that the previous year’s events had aspired to.

Injuries would prove to be another major factor in how the 2007 Great American Bash played out. World Champion Edge had acquired his belt through a convoluted series of events that involved both previous Champion Undertaker and ideal number one contender Mr. Kennedy going out through injury.

However, Edge himself then went down with an injury and so the belt was vacated and put up for grabs to the winner of a triple threat match between Edge’s scheduled opponent Kane, and also Batista and The Great Khali. Unfortunately this would lead to lumbering lummox Khali getting the strap, hardly a high point in the history of the title. In the main event John Cena and Bobby Lashley put on a great match, that was hampered by the fact that Lashley went in with a shoulder injury, leading little doubt to the winner.

Lashley would be taken out by the wrongly diagnosed Mr. Kennedy in an angle on the next night’s RAW, and would not be seen on WWE television again. In other blunders, the ailing Cruiserweight Title was finally taken out to pasture and shot, following Hornswoggle’s impromptu victory after a decent five man match, and the Sandman contested a mediocre match against Carlito in one of his last WWE appearances. The card was redeemed somewhat by MVP vs. Matt Hardy, and Matt’s brother Jeff stole the show in a hard hitting war against Umaga over the IC Belt.

Everything else was strictly run of the mill, business as usual, as Randy Orton looked to enhance his Legend Killer persona against Dusty Rhodes, and CM Punk and Johnny Morrison collided in a bout that fell short of expectations. The 2007 Great American Bash was handicapped by injuries to the talent, as well as some silly booking decisions and bad match ups; still, in this case the midcard proved to be the best portion of the PPV, while main eventers Lashley and Cena made the best use of what they had to work with in a dramatic but predictable match.

As of writing this column, it is two weeks until this year’s show. There does not appear to be anything particularly odd going on booking-wise at the moment, but history has shown that this, when combined with the unpredictable wildcard of injuries and Wellness Policy issues, means that the whole nature of the GAB can change right up to the start of the show. It certainly won’t be boring!

I’m relatively new to the column writing field, and am eager for any feedback. Please send any to james@wwepreview.com. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed the column!