The April 25, 2000 episode of WCW Thunder wound up becoming one of the most infamous days in World Championship Wrestling’s downward spiral, as actor David Arquette wound up winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Diamond Dallas Page during a tag team match. The idea has been panned by wrestlers and wrestling fans alike, as many felt it cheapened the company’s top prize by giving it to a non-wrestler. Arquette would quickly drop the title (something that happened a lot in WCW back in 2000) to Jeff Jarrett, but the damage was already done.
In a new Patreon-exclusive interview, Arquette sat down with former WCW President Eric Bischoff to discuss how he felt about the entire angle. A portion of the interview was shared on Twitter, in which Arquette reveals he wasn’t expecting the massive backlash when the idea was first pitched to him.
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#OTD 20 years ago, @DavidArquette won the WCW Championship – the topic on this week’s @83Weeks!
AND NOW, in this Patreon-exclusive event, @EBischoff goes 1-on-1 w/ the man himself! Talking about his upcoming documentary, his time with WCW & more!
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“The fans didn’t react the way I sort of thought they would,” Arquette admitted. “In my head I thought, ‘I’m the first fan that had become a champion.’ As a kid I was always like, ‘Oh, I’d love to be that.’ So that’s how I looked at it when it was presented to me. … So I didn’t put all the pieces together because I was looking at it from that angle. I thought the fans would be with me in ‘We’re all champions together!’ But then it wasn’t, it was really the other side. And then backstage too.”
He then described an awkward backstage encounter he had with Booker T and how Vince Russo pitched him the idea for the storyline.
“I was a fan, so that’s what really hurt [is] that now this thing that I love hates me,” he continued.
Arquette would later redeem himself in the eyes of wrestling fans when he began wrestling on the independent scene in 2018. He infamously took part in a deathmatch against Nick Gage at Joey Janela’s LA Confidential event in November of that year, where he suffered a cut on his neck and had to be rushed to the hospital due to severe blood loss. His most recent match took place for Bar Wrestling, where he teamed with RJ City to beat Colt Cabana and Joey Ryan on Jan. 1.
