Eric Bischoff was one of the key figures of WCW which was a major wrestling promotion and the biggest competitor of WWE throughout the 90s. Bash at the Beach was one of the major PPV events of the promotion which started back in 1994 and it continued till the very end of the promotion.
In 1995, the event took place in an actual beach side and it made history. The event took on the beachside of Huntington Beach, California and it also hosted 9500 people. Eric Bischoff recently looked back at this iconic event and shared some inside details of it. Speaking on his 83 Weeks Podcast, Bischoff revealed;
Eric Bischoff’s Inside Perspective: Navigating the Obstacles of WCW’s Iconic Bash At The Beach on a Real Beach
“I couldn’t pin that on any one individual [who came up with the name]. It was probably another one of those collaborative things that was sitting in the room; it was just bouncing ideas. You know, it was called Bash of the Beach. So it always bothered me that we’d call something a bash of the beach and not always have it on a beach.
“Like, bash the beach in Orlando. Yeah, it’s all clear. Let’s fuck it. Orlando, there are no beaches in Orlando, right? Made beaches. I know a couple of bars with really cool man-made beaches. You could sit out on the beach at a little pond to drink margaritas and fantasize that you’re down in Al Cap Poco or some shit.
Bash At The Beach 1995 Took Place In A Beachside
“But I always wanted to have it at a beach. The cost of doing so, the logistical hurdles you would have to overcome to do something outside on a beach. And then, of course, you’ve got weather, which could, can be an issue. So there were a lot of reasons why we never did it in WCW up until this point.
“But once I was able to, I got the chair, and I was the one that called the shots. Um, it was like, all hands on deck, let’s find a beach we can do this at. But I don’t know that it was my idea. I think it was especially Huntington Beach that would’ve been; there would’ve been a lot of people involved in that.
“Sharon Cella would’ve been involved in that. Mike Weber would’ve been involved in that. Zane Breslov, of course, would’ve been involved in that. So there were, there were a lot of people who owned it for Hulk Hogan.” Concluded the inaugural WWE RAW General Manager.
Bash at the Beach 1995 was a star studded event where some of the biggest names in the history of professional wrestling worked. Wrestlers like Sting, Ric Flair, Randy Savage, Booker T, and DDP worked in this event. On the main event of the show, Hulk Hogan successfully defended the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Vader in a Steel Cage.
H/T to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription