On October 25, 2023, the American professional wrestlingpromotionWWE announced that it would hold its first-ever pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreamingevent in Germany called Bash in Berlin. The event is scheduled for Saturday, August 31, 2024, at the Uber Arena (formerly Mercedes-Benz Arena) in Berlin, Germany and will feature wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDownbrand divisions. The event will air on traditional PPV worldwide and will be available to livestream on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in most international markets.[1] It was also announced that the August 30 episode of Friday Night SmackDown would air live from the same venue, which will be the first time for the program to broadcast from Germany. Tickets went on sale on November 30, 2023.[2]
Storylines
The card will include matches that result from scripted storylines. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television programs, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.[3][4]
At King and Queen of the Ring in May, Raw's Gunther defeated SmackDown's Randy Orton in the final of the King of the Ring tournament, which earned him a match for Raw's World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam in August. During the King of the Ring final, however, Orton's shoulder was not fully on the mat when the referee counted the pin.[5] After the show, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque noted the mistake and said the referee's decision was final but that there would likely be a rematch between the two.[6] At SummerSlam, Gunther won the World Heavyweight Championship,[7] and during his speech on the following Raw, he was interrupted by Orton, who noted that because of that mistake in the King of the Ring final, that ultimately allowed Gunther to become champion. He then said that he wanted his rematch at Bash in Berlin so he could take the World Heavyweight Championship from Gunther in his home country. Gunther accepted the challenge.[8]
