David Arquette: WCW Champion? - Yeah, That Happened!

   People seem to crap on Vince Russo about almost everything imaginable.  When people defend him and mention that he had good ideas in the WWF, others start saying that it was because everything was filtered through Vince McMahon.  There are things I disagree with Vince Russo on and there are things that I agree with him on.  At the end of the day, I still respect the man.  He still contributed to the business of professional wrestling.  I can be okay with most of the things Russo has booked but there is one particular thing that I disagree with him on, and that was the idea of putting the WCW World Title on David Arquette.  It's something I think many fans could wish they forgot!

   I cannot get behind this decision at all!  I'm even more okay with Russo putting the Title on himself, which he did, than putting it on Arquette.  To David Arquette's credit, he did not want to be the Champion and felt weird about it.  The movie Ready To Rumble was coming out around this time and WCW wanted to do some inter-promotional stuff, which I completely understand.  Russo argued that a stunt like this with a celebrity would draw people to WCW.  If it were almost anyone else, I might have been persuaded to be somewhat okay with it, but I'll just say it: David Arquette is a shitty actor!  His celebrity status wasn't as high as people think.  Generally, I'm not fond of much celebrity involvement with professional wrestling but if you're going to put your most prestigious Title on an actor, at least get someone good!  WCW was involved with many celebrities and athletes back then.  I'd have been okay with Dennis Rodman or Karl Malone getting the Title over David Arquette!  

  Again, I may not enjoy his acting, but I respect him for knowing enough to at least question it.  He felt uncomfortable about it and thought it was disrespectful and might lead to a lot of backlash.  At the end of the day, it wasn't his decision.  Also, I'll give credit where credit is due.  Vince Russo may have been head of creative in those days, but he certainly didn't have the authority of having the last say.  The people who approved this are really the ones at fault, more so than Russo and Arquette.  Did it question the WCW World Title's credibility?  Sure, but let's be fair!  This took place in April of 2000.  Before David Arquette's win, the Title had changed hands 6 times already and didn't mean much anymore anyway.  Heck, WCW did many questionable things, a lot of which was way before Russo even worked for them.  It got even worse as by year's end, as the title changed hands well over 20 times, completely diluting the value of the Title.  Therefore, the blame cannot be put on David Arquette.  That being said, I still think it was one of the dumbest ideas I'd ever seen or heard! 

   There's another reason I hated it and it actually had nothing to do with the fact that he of all people won the Title.  The match he won the Championship in was a tag team match featuring David Arquette teaming with the WCW Champion Diamond Dallas Page against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff.  The stipulation was that whoever scored the pinfall would be the Champion.  Here's the dumb part!  Arquette pinned Bischoff to win his partner DDP's World Title.  The even dumber part is that Page celebrated with the man that just won his Title.  How asinine is that?

    I might get some hate for what I'm about to say but I'm ready for it.  Ready To Rumble was a crappy movie!  There, I said it!  It didn't make wrestling fans look any better than they were looked at.  I'd even go so far as to say it portrayed wrestling fans exactly the way most people that didn't follow wrestling already thought of wrestling fans, or even worse!  For me, it wasn't until The Wrestler came out that a movie did the wrestling business or its fans justice.  Despite the fact that many WCW wrestlers were in this movie and it got WCW a lot of press, I think it was for all the wrong reasons.  The bottom line is, it blows my mind that David Arquette was the WCW Champion. Then again, stranger things have happened!  I mean Drew Carey of all people is in the WWE Hall of Fame for no damn reason!



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