The Bash was the sixth annual Great American Bash professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and 20th Great American Bash event overall. It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brand divisions. The event took place on June 28, 2009, at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California. It was the final Great American Bash event to be held on PPV as the event was replaced by Fatal 4-Way in 2010. It was also the only Great American Bash to be titled as "The Bash", as in 2012, the event was revived as a special episode of SmackDown, which returned to using the full name of "The Great American Bash". After another eight years, the event was again revived for WWE's developmental brand, NXT, in 2020 and has since been held as an annual event for NXT.

There were eight matches on for the event's card. The card for the event was a supercard due to it having three main attraction bouts. This included: Randy Orton defeating Triple H in a Three Stages of Hell match to retain the WWE Championship, World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk getting disqualified against Jeff Hardy, and John Cena defeating The Miz in the first official encounter between the two. The undercard for the show featured five matches: ECW Champion Tommy Dreamer defending his title against Christian, Jack Swagger, Finlay, and Mark Henry in a Championship Scramble match, Chris Jericho wagering the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Rey Mysterio's mask, Dolph Ziggler versus The Great Khali in a No Disqualification match, The Colóns defending the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship against The Legacy and Edge and Chris Jericho, and Michelle McCool challenging Melina for the WWE Women's Championship.

The event had 178,000 buys, down on The Great American Bash 2008 figure of 196,000 buys.