Background in the
Austin suburb of
Cedar Park, Texas.
The Great American Bash is a
professional wrestling event established in 1985. Following
WWE's acquisition of
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in March 2001, the promotion revived the event as their own annual
pay-per-view (PPV) in
2004, which continued until
2009. Following this 2009 event, The Great American Bash was discontinued as a PPV. In
2012, WWE revived the event to be held as a
special episode of
SmackDown but was again discontinued. In
2020, WWE again revived the event, this time for the
developmental brand NXT as an annual
television special of the
NXT program. On May 28, 2023, during
Battleground, it was announced that the 11th Great American Bash under the WWE banner, the fourth annual for NXT, and 25th overall, would be held on Sunday, July 30 at the
H-E-B Center at Cedar Park in the
Austin suburb of
Cedar Park, Texas. Instead of airing as a television special like the previous three events, the 2023 event was held as a
livestreaming event, marking the first Great American Bash to air on WWE's livestreaming platforms,
Peacock in the United States and the
WWE Network in most international markets.
Storylines The event comprised seven matches, including one on the pre-show, that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the NXT brand, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television program,
NXT, and the supplementary online streaming show,
Level Up. At the end of the second week's episode of the
Gold Rush special on June 27,
Bron Breakker went berserk in
Shawn Michaels' office before storming out of the room screaming that he had done his best in NXT and Michaels could not control him. The following week, during a promo where Breakker talked about his match against
Raw's
Seth "Freakin" Rollins for the
World Heavyweight Championship during the first week's Gold Rush special, he was interrupted by
Ilja Dragunov, who said that Breakker was between him and the
NXT Championship. The two then brawled. On July 7, Michaels announced via
Twitter that Dragunov and Breakker would face each other on the next episode, with the winner receiving a match against
Carmelo Hayes for the NXT Championship at The Great American Bash. The following week, Dragunov won the match. At the end of the second week's episode of the Gold Rush special on June 27,
Tiffany Stratton defeated Thea Hail to controversially retain the
NXT Women's Championship; Hail had Stratton in the Kimura lock submission, but due to a distraction by
Drew Gulak and
Charlie Dempsey at ringside, the referee did not see Stratton tap out. The following week, Perez defeated Paxley, and after the match, she called out Davenport. On the July 4 episode of
NXT, Davenport defeated Perez. During the first week's episode of the Gold Rush special on June 20,
Wes Lee defeated
Tyler Bate to retain the
NXT North American Championship, with
Mustafa Ali as the
special guest referee. The following week during a backstage segment, Lee confronted Ali about how he refereed the match. Bate then showed up and told Ali that there was no telling who would have won had the match been called fairly. Later that same night, a match between Ali and Bate was scheduled for the next episode, However, Lee lost the title to Raw's
"Dirty" Dominik Mysterio on the July 18 episode following interference from Mysterio's fellow
Judgment Day stablemates. The following week, a triple threat match between Mysterio, Lee, and Ali was scheduled for The Great American Bash. On the July 25 episode of
NXT,
Gable Steveson had to make a decision about his career, then he was interrupted by
Baron Corbin, who suggested that Steveson should just not go back to NXT. Steveson answered that Corbin made his decision easier and challenged him to a match at The Great American Bash, which was later official. ==Event==