On this date in WCW history: The Outsiders crash the Great American Bash, Kevin Nash powerbombs Eric Bischoff through a table

We covered Scott Hall making the jump from the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) over to World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and interrupting a match to cut a promo alluding to some sort of war. We also covered the "BIG" surprise Hall had been promising when the second half of his tag team, The Outsiders, showed up on Monday Nitro on June 10, 1996, when Kevin Nash showed up to bully Eric Bischoff.

And now we move on to this date in WCW history, which featured the Great American Bash pay-per-view (PPV) at the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hall and Nash had pestered Bischoff into promising them he would provide three of the best wrestlers WCW had to offer. It was at this PPV that Bischoff had told them to show up to if they were really looking for a fight. So they did but they didn't get one. Instead, behind-the-scenes goings on forced WCW to admit a few things on the air.

You see, the premise to the storyline of Hall and Nash invading WCW was that it was purposely designed to make it seem as though they were still working for the WWF. Naturally, this led to WWF getting its legal eagles involved with the hopes they could swoop down and snuff out all of this nonsense before it ever really got off the ground.

They had a case, too. Hall didn't act any differently than he had while he was with WWF, using all the same idiosyncrasies he did as Razor Ramon. He even used the terms "Nacho Man" and "The Huckster," which WWF had created in skits earlier in the year as a mean-spirited way of poking fun at WCW.

This all resulted in Bischoff calling out Hall and Nash and having them state, publicly and on the record, that they did not, in fact, work for WWF. This wasn't good enough for the folks at Titan Towers and they filed a lawsuit that dragged on for years until a settlement was reached that eventually led to WWF purchasing WCW in 2001.

In storyline, though, Bischoff had promised a fight but he didn't deliver one, at least not yet. He did say a match would take place at Bash at the Beach, the PPV scheduled to take place the following month. When Hall continued to ask who the three wrestlers were that Bischoff found to face them, Bischoff said he would reveal as much the next night on Nitro.

This prompted an enraged Hall to say, "you don't jack us around" before punching Bischoff in the gut. He barreled over and Nash immediately stepped up and delivered a powerbomb onto a gimmicked table set up just slightly off stage. Bischoff would later write in his book that he never took issue with getting physical but he was scared to death that Nash would miss the target and seriously injure him. As it turned out, Nash hit the target perfectly but Bischoff still ended up suffering minor injuries.

But no matter; The Outsiders had delivered yet another shot that had the pro wrestling world giddy with anticipation at what would come next in an angle that was shaping up to be one of the greatest of all time. They would continue to terrorize the WCW roster in the weeks leading up to the Bash at the Beach PPV in July, where the entire landscape of the pro wrestling industry would change forever.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though.