Lennon was a Beatle. McCartney was a Beatle. Harrison was a Beatle. Starr was a Beatle. Together, the Beatles formed a band called The Beatles.
In my opinion, English doesn't handle this subtlety particularly well, and mostly conflates "the band" with "the constituents of the band". With "The Beatles", the tendency is to refer to the group of members.
"The Beatles was ..." can work, but only in a context where the listener is strongly expecting the name of an abstract entity. It will sound weird if the context can, at all, be construed as referring to the people.
Because the bare infinitive help is not understood to be a nominal (which goes with what I like) but an action. What I want to do is help the poor. What makes me happy is to help|helping the poor.
I like look out the window. ungrammatical
I like looking out the window. grammatical
I like to look out the window. grammatical
Cleft:
What I like is look out the window.ungrammatical
What I like is looking out the window. grammatical
What I like is to look out the window. grammatical
Normal: I touched the window.
Cleft: What I did was touch the window.
The predicate complement of the cleft must supply either a nominal or an action according to the needs of the verb in the cleft.
Here, that verb is did, and it is looking for an action. When did has the meaning "performed an action" it wants an action complement. The bare infinitive is an action:
I did shop. grammatical
I did eat. grammatical
I did play. grammatical
I did sky. ungrammatical
Thus:
What I did was touch the window. grammatical
What I did was to touch the window. ungrammatical [some might say marginal]
What I did was touching the window. ungrammatical
Best Answer
"All he had were bruises and cuts" is the correct version to use because there is more than one bruise and more than one cut. 'was' would be used if there was only one bruise and/or cut. The sentence would be "All he had was a bruise and a cut.
You could also say "All he had were bruises and a cut" or "All he had was a bruise and some cuts". There are lots of combinations.
I find it more natural to say "cuts and bruises" rather than "bruises and cuts", but I am not sure why. Someone more qualified will probably be able to answer that.
I would also fully understand you if you said, "All he had was bruises and cuts", a lot of British people speak like that, me included. In an English test make sure you use 'were'. If you do use 'was' some people will feel the need to correct your English. Don't worry they correct my English too and I have been speaking it exclusively for 44 years.