On July 10, 1988 the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland was the site of The Great American Bash, the final Jim Crockett Promotions pay-per-view event. On this day, the 36th Anniversary of the event I thought it would be a great time to share, in depth, the original program from this event that I acquired at WrestleCon during mania weekend this year.
Rolling into day 2 of WrestleCon this year, April 6th, I was slated to get a 1991 Impel WCW Card of the Four Horsemen signed by SID and Ric Flair. This card features, Barry Windham, SID, Ric Flair, & Arn Anderson. I had Arn sign it on June 10, 2022 at a Big Time Wrestling show in Webster, MA.
Barry Windham was supposed to sign the card in March of this year at the Wrestling Classic, however due to a Spring snowstorm his flight was cancelled. They did do a private signing make up in June, however It was not announced until May.
That morning I get to the hall and look for SID and he is not at his table. I ask the handlers there who tell me that SID cancelled last minute. I had heard rumors that SID was a frequent no show or last minute cancellation type guy. Not wanting to waste the $79 Ric Flair signature I pre-paid for I didn't want him to sign this card, trouble is I didn't bring anything else. So the hunt was on to find something else for Flair to sign and quickly.
I started searching around at vendor tables looking for Wonderama Trading cards and I found one, but it's Michael Hayes slamming Flair, why would I want Flair to sign that? I mean if Hayes had signed it, sure, but not Flair first. I was stressing hard.
I got in line for Flair, ended up in line for over 2 hours. I tried to sell my Flair ticket, but didn't have any luck there. I was frustrated because it's $79 for Flair to sign something and I wasn't happy with what I was getting signed. The vendor that I bought the card from also had an original Great American Bash 1988 Program for $60. I just didn't want to spend more money as I had spent quite a bit already.
Ultimately, I wasn't happy with the card, I love Jim Crockett Promotions and this is an original and official piece of JCP merchandise. My favorite wrestling to watch is JCP from 1984 - 1988 and I love the Great American Bash tours, this was the last one under the JCP banner, also this was the first ever Great American Bash PPV and the last ever Crockett PPV. My buddy Bradford watched my place in line and I ran back upstairs and bought it.
As I neared the front of the line many people saw what I was getting signed and that it was a cool piece to get signed. Flair even remarked how nice it was. After getting Flair to sign it I decided to spent another $60 to have Lex Luger sign it as he and Flair wrestled in the main event on the show. He too thought it was a beautiful piece and talked about the match. I've met Luger twice and both times he couldn't have been a nicer guy.
I debated having others at WrestleCon who appeared on the show sign the program as well, Arn Anderson and The Rock n' Roll Express, but then I thought, no I can't get everyone on the show to sign it, and they way Flair and Luger signed it, it was too perfect. I couldn't be happier with how this piece turned out.
My plan is to frame it and hang it, however I'm going to share all the pages of the inside of the program at the end of this post.
Great American Bash 1988 Results
July 10, 1988 Baltimore Arena, Maryland
NWA World Tag Team Champions: "Enforcer" Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard with JJ Dillon wrestled Sting and "The Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff to a 20 minute time limit draw
The Midnight Express: "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton & "Sweet" Stan Lane with Jim Cornette defeated NWA United States Tag Team Champions: The Fantastics: Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers to win the championships
Tower of Doom Match: The Road Warriors: Hawk & Animal, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin, and Jimmy "Jam" Garvin with Precious defeated Al Perez, "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff, Kevin Sullivan, "Captain" Mike Rotunda, and The Russian Assassin with Gary Hart and "Mr. Number 1" Paul Jones
NWA United States Champion: Barry Windham with JJ Dillon defeated "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes
NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair with JJ Dillon defeated "The Total Package" Lex Luger by referee stoppage
Check out all of my posts from our wrestling trip to Philly
Read a blog post I wrote about The Great American Bash in general in 2017.
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Until next time!
