On the April 25, 2000 taping of WCW Thunder and exactly five months later on the September 25th edition of Nitro, two of the most head-scratching moments in wrestling history happened. On Thunder, thanks to the strange stipulations of a tag team match, actor David Arquette found himself crowned as the new WCW World Champion.
On the September 25th edition of Nitro, the WCW’s head writer and booker Vince Russo decided that him winning the title would be what was best for the fledgling company.
Obviously, each of these title wins completely delegitimized the world championship in what was an embarrassing year for WCW. There were a multitude of factors behind the scenes that led to the company's demise but as for on-screen factors, it's tough to argue that these world title reigns didn't turn some fans off. That being said, whose title reign was worse for business?
10 Arquette - Fans Still Think It’s His Fault
For better or for worse, thanks to the promotion of the WCW movie, Ready To Rumble, David Arquette would inexplicably find himself not only on WCW programming promoting the movie, but he found himself in the main event on a WCW show. Arquette was in a tag team with world champion DDP, against Eric Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett; whoever scored the winning pinfall would be the WCW champion. Arquette and DDP each had a man pinned, and the referee chose to count Bischoff's shoulders to the mat, which meant Arquette was named the champion. It’s one of the moments, if not THE moment that’s held directly responsible for the demise of WCW.
9 Russo - He Booked It
David Arquette was part of the cast of Ready To Rumble and to help promote the movie was asked to be part of the match that made him WCW champion. Whether he thought he could turn it down or not, he did what just about any worker would do, doing his assigned job. But Vince Russo, on the other hand, had full say in what he was doing. Like it or not, like him or not Russo has been writing for wrestling since the early 90s and should have known better than to book himself, a writer and a non-wrestler, as world champion.
8 Arquette - A Celebrity As World Champion
In the history of any company’s World Title, seldom if ever had a celebrity become the world champion. For the fans, David Arquette winning the world title was everything that was wrong with the wrestling industry. It was too out there, too much of a Carny move, and shameless promotion to get on magazine covers. It was almost as if for a moment, fans forgot that the sport is scripted and this really happened. On top of that, it's not like Arquette was even an A-list celebrity, who would turn a bunch of eyeballs onto the product.
7 Russo - A Booker As World Champion
Even when megastars like Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes are the head booker booking themselves to be champions, some members of the roster and supposed wrestling journalists look down on the decision. Now picture fans and wrestlers alike knowing full well that you’re basically an outsider from another company. So in your own supposed infinite wisdom you decided that somehow you being champion, if only for a day let alone a minute was best for WCW. But the moment Goldberg smashed Vince Russo through the cage inadvertently gifting him the world title, it instantly became one of the worst moments in history.
6 Arquette - Russo Still Thinks It Was A Success
Whether he likes to be controversial for controversy’s sake, Vince Russo’s opinions of the business are generally contrarian to what the bulk of the rest of wrestling industry or its fans think.
So when Russo, who has become the bane of wrestling’s existence continues to defend this, along with many other booking decisions pretty much establishes that yes, David Arquette winning the WCW title was a terrible idea.
5 Russo - Vacated The Title / 49ers Match
Just like his booking in WWE, Russo loved to hotshot titles around. Also Russo did like to go with the younger underutilized guys and see what he could do with them. Booker T was one of the few who benefited from Russo’s Crash TV style of booking. But it also placed Booker T in two of the worst days in WCW history. First, was the way he lost the title - in a cage match against Russo. Goldberg speared Russo through the cage, inadvertently winning him the world title. One week later with the WCW title again vacant for the 12th time, and Booker T would again win the title in an absurd San Francisco 49ers match.
4 Arquette - Was On A PPV As Champion
David Arquette was booked to win the WCW title on Thunder and spent about a week and a half on top of the mountain. No matter how many eyes were on the product thanks to this obvious publicity stunt, WCW was still plunging into the abyss. What better way to save it than have Arquette headline a PPV, Slamboree 2000. Arquette headlining this ppv simply meant that there were a bunch of frustrated wrestlers backstage, watching a celebrity take the top spot.
3 Russo - Living Out A Dream In His Hometown
Do you remember being a kid playing with your wrestling figures or rough housing with with your friends? You booked the territory and generally put yourself over as the champion. If you think back to those days, you’ll remember them fondly, and you’ll also probably think about how silly the booking was. Multiply that tenfold and you’ll probably still not come close to the reality of Vince Russo being able to book himself winning the world championship in his hometown for no.2 wrestling company in North America.
2 Arquette - It Was All For Publicity
During his brief run in WCW, Arquette took all that was paid to him and donated it to the families of Owen Hart and Brian Pillman. Arquette loves the business and recently has gotten back into it, the right way as evidenced in You Can’t Kill David Arquette.
While he has been looked at differently in recent years, Arquette’s run as champion has still been looked at much the same way as it was back in 2000; as nothing more than a publicity stunt.
1 Russo - It’s Vince Russo
There haven’t been many within wrestling to be seemingly completely blackballed and never invited back. While booking himself to become WCW World Champion is probably not the reason Russo was blackballed, it certainly helped showcase the guy’s complete short sightedness and lack of focus. Many traditionalists in the business absolutely despise Russo's way of thinking, while fans continue to look back at his booking decisions and simply scratching their heads.