It took place on June 28, 2009, at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California and featured wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands.

The match ended in a no-contest after Punk interfered, resulting in Long making a triple threat match between the three men for the World Heavyweight Championship on the June 15 episode of Raw, where Punk would retain the title by pinning Edge after Hardy had performed a Swanton Bomb on him.

[10] Punk and Hardy had tense confrontations in the coming weeks, leading to Theodore Long making a championship match between the two for the Bash.

[11] After winning the WWE Championship at Extreme Rules, Batista was assaulted the next night on Raw by former champion, Randy Orton, and Legacy (Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase Jr.) incapacitating Batista and leading to him vacating his title due to a legitimate tear in his Biceps brachii muscle.

[12] The next week on Raw, a fatal four-way match was held to determine the new champion, which featured Orton, Triple H, John Cena, and The Big Show.

[13] The match ended in a draw when neither man was able to answer the referee's ten-count; Orton retained the championship as a result.

[16][17][18] In the wake of their conflict, Finlay inserted himself into the rivalry on the June 16 episode of ECW on Sci Fi by attacking all three men.

[23] On the June 19 episode of SmackDown, it was announced that the Intercontinental title would be defended at The Bash in a match where if Mysterio were to lose, he would remove his mask.

[30] Prior to the show airing live on pay per view, the crowd in attendance was shown an untelevised match pitting R-Truth against Shelton Benjamin, which saw the former defeat the latter by pinfall.

[34] The next match was between The Colóns (Carlito and Primo) and The Legacy (Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase) for the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship.

As the champion went to attempt a body scissors, McCool delivered a Faith Breaker for the pinfall victory, winning the title.

Though it appeared initially that he won the title, the referee soon discovered Punk's foot was under the bottom rope, causing the match to continue.

As the competitors continued to fight, Punk performed a roundhouse kick on the referee, causing him to get disqualified, thus retaining the title.

"[32] A seemingly-universal praise for the event from critics came in their commentary of the WWE Intercontinental Championship match between Rey Mysterio and Chris Jericho.

[36] James Caldwell, an editor for the Pro Wrestling Torch, commended the effort of both men for the overall quality of their rivalry over the past few months leading up to this encounter, saying that the two had "great chemistry".

Wade Keller, editor of the Pro Wrestling Torch, who wrote a report of the show, said the encounter "was pretty much the worst finish possible" as it did not help elevate the status of The Miz as a viable competitor.

Despite the favorable reviews of the Three Stages of Hell match, Keller referred to it as "stale" due to how many times prior to the show these two wrestled.

In 2010, the event was replaced on PPV by Fatal 4-Way, then in April 2011, the promotion ceased going by its full name of World Wrestling Entertainment, with "WWE" becoming an orphaned initialism.

[40] The event, which reverted to being called The Great American Bash, returned in July 2012 as a special episode of SmackDown.