25 Best Wrestling PPVs Ever
19. WCW Bash At The Beach 1996
Best Match: Rey Mistero, Jr. Vs. Psicosis
Worst Match: Steve McMichael Vs. Joe Gomez
Pay Per View events usually act as the stage on which major angles are settled. In revolutionising the industry in the mid nineties, it's almost appropriate that WCW subverted the script and initiated their biggest ever storyline on Pay Per View.
The angle was so incendiary, so momentous, so unpredictable, that it, almost by itself, excused what was a night of fairly middling in-ring action. The prospect of Hulk Hogan as Scott Hall and Kevin Nash's third man in their battle with Lex Luger, Randy Savage and Sting was so inconceivable that even Bobby Heenan's suggestion that Hogan might not be on the expected side came across more as heel bluster than a botch.
When Hogan, whose early career heel run was a forgotten memory in the wake of his business-expanding face persona, dropped that infamous leg, infuriated fans pelted the ring with garbage. This image soon become the nWo's calling card. Hogan told those same fans to "stick it" in a career-best, industry-shaking promo.
Match quality wasn't entirely nonexistent, though - the blinding opener pitting Rey Mistero, Jr. against Psicosis, despite the near-silence of the ungrateful crowd, is a typically awesome WCW Cruiserweight effort, one which, almost fittingly, made its audience wait for the most spectacular aerial assaults.