It became the ultimate shark that World Championship Wrestling (WCW) decided to jump. Despite “finger pokes of doom”, the oversaturation of the New World Order (nWo), and the misuse of Bret “Hitman” Hart, it was anointing Hollywood B-lister David Arquette as the WCW World Heavyweight Champion on WCW Thunder on April 25, 2000 that sent the wrestling world into a frenzy. Within a year, WCW would be finished, sold to Vince McMahon and WWE.
David Arquette was a lifelong wrestling fan, groomed in the 1980s when his father, actor Lewis Arquette, provided the voice for “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka in the Hulk Hogan’s Rock N’ Wrestling cartoon during the WWF’s boom period. While David Arquette failed to become a major star in Hollywood like his sisters Rosanna and Patricia Arquette, he found himself a comedic sideman in various film and TV projects throughout the 1990s, particularly the role of police officer Dewey Riley in the Scream franchise. In February of 2000, Scream 3 was leading the box office, and just two months later, he would be one of the leads in the WCW produced film, Ready to Rumble. With WCW entering Hollywood for its first feature film, it was only natural they would want to cross-promote the film on WCW programming. But no one expected the cross-promotion to turn out the way it did.
David Arquette made his first WCW appearance two weeks earlier, on WCW Thunder on April 12, 2000. Sitting at ringside, he engaged in a verbal sparring match with Eric Bischoff, who was leading his New Blood stable. Arquette was ultimately backed up by Chris Kanyon, who had been the stunt coordinator on Ready to Rumble, and Diamond Dallas Page. That encounter lead to a match against Bischoff on WCW Monday Nitro on April 24, which Arquette won. Bischoff was so furious, he scheduled a World title match on that week’s WCW Thunder, that would see Arquette pair up with DDP against himself and WCW World Champion Jeff Jarrett. While it would be a tag team match, whoever scored the pin in the match – regardless of who was pinned – would be crowned the new WCW World Champion.
Backstage, it was DDP who was filled in with the plans to crown Arquette as World Champion first, who then had to break it to David. “I thought it was a bit of a joke and he was like, ‘No, I’m serious,'” Arquette told ESPN back in 2018. “I think [my] response was, ‘That’s a terrible idea. No, we can’t do that,’ but then they explained the storyline that I wasn’t pinning a wrestler, I was pinning Eric Bischoff.” But no matter who Arquette was pinning, the move didn’t sit well with the fans at home, nor many of the wrestlers in the back.
“I understood them trying to do something for shock value and the ratings, I get that, but there’s a lot of respect that goes into what we do too,” Shane “Hurricane” Helms recalled to ESPN in that same interview. Helms was a member of the WCW locker room at this point, in the group 3 Count. “Championships are like our Emmy’s, our Oscars. You can’t just give them out to anybody. It was shocking. It was chaotic. Wrestling fans in general didn’t take to it too well. You can’t be so interested in bringing in new customers that you alienate the ones you do have.”
“There was a lot of hatred, and a lot of people got so pissed off,” Arquette told Sunday Night’s Main Event podcast in July of 2018. “I remember telling one wrestler, I’m not sure who it was, wasn’t Bam Bam Bigelow, but it was someone who hadn’t ever been the champion before. And he was just so pissed. I was like I don’t know what to say, man. You know, that was my first inkling on how sort of upset people were gonna get.” It didn’t help that in his first title defense, on WCW Monday Nitro on May 1st, he beat former MMA star Tank Abbott and won. Tank Abbott was looking to make the crossover to pro wrestling, similar to how Ken Shamrock had done in WWF, but his career faltered before it even began. Losing to David Arquette in just over two minutes – albeit from a Diamond Cutter from outside interference from DDP – didn’t ignite any fires into Tank’s career.
David Arquette’s reign as WCW World Champion wasn’t long, however. On Sunday, May 7 at WCW Slamboree, Arquette lost in a triple threat match with Jeff Jarrett and DDP, with Jarrett capturing his second WCW World title. But it didn’t matter anymore. Even though Arquette had only held the title for 12-days, the damage was done. And for over a decade, he would become one of pro wrestling’s most hated figures – even though he was just a pawn in a bigger game. But David Arquette would regain some faith with the wrestling audience eventually, although it would take him 18 years to fix the bad blood.
On April 7, 2018, at Wrestling Revolver’s Pancakes & Piledrivers event during WrestleMania Week in New Orleans, David Arquette entered the ring to challenge The Besties in the World. Arquette had entered the world of sports entertainment once more since the WCW run, for an appearance with WWE in 2010 (in a loss with Alex Riley against Randy Orton on Monday Night Raw), but this time, he seemed to have a new fire in him. This was beyond promoting a new film venture – this time it felt real. And on May 31, 2018, while appearing on The Wendy Williams Show, Arquette announced he was returning to pro wrestling. Not as a sideshow, but as an active participant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhMy8Gp6dZw
He would make his return on June 14 with Championship Wrestling From Hollywood, entering a scramble match, before having his first singles match with CWFH, a dark match, against RJ City on July 15. RJ City would end up being Arquette’s sidekick through his comeback to pro wrestling, which would see Arquette appear for multiple top indie promotions such as House of Hardcore, Bar Wrestling, Warrior Wrestling, Alpha-1 Wrestling, F1RST Wrestling, and Northeast Wrestling (NEW). He would also appear for IMPACT Wrestling on the special with Border City Wrestling (BCW) and gain huge mainstream press for appearing in a deathmatch against Nick Gage with Game Changer Wrestling (GCW). His last appearance in the ring was this past January with Bar Wrestling, where he and RJ City defeated the team of Joey Ryan & Colt Cabana.
As his indie wrestling career continues to run (although it’s on shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic), David Arquette has finally won over many of his former detractors. While WCW put him in the unenviable position of winning a championship that had previously graced the waists of such legends like Ric Flair, Sting, and Hulk Hogan, his commitment to showing his passion for the industry ultimately won out. His comeback to pro wrestling was filmed and a documentary, You Cannot Kill David Arquette, was scheduled to premiere at this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW) festival last month, but it has since been postponed due to the cancellation of large events during the outbreak.
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