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| Pretty much. David Arquette becoming champion probably helped gain WCW some viewers at the time. For every fan boy that turned off, more non fans tuned in out of curiosity.
Also, non fans and casual fans aren't going to care that David Arquette is champion. In fact, they'd think David Arquette is a better champion than all of those other guys who's name they don't know.
From what I hear, the IWC only make up 20% of viewers for a TV show. If you look at it like that then a company needs to do stuff to keep the majority of viewers intrested, not the vocal minority.
The media would be intrested, they wouldn't really have an actual opinion on him as a champion.
Internet fans aren't positive people anyway. They bitch and moan about almost everything. But at the end of the day, Trump as champion is the exact thing they thrive on.
As for the other fans, they're perfectly happy watching the big stars. It's not like Cena, Triple H or Orton would vanish from TV. They'd still be there if Trump was to become world champion.
The only harm Arquette caused was in the eyes of hardcore fans.
WCW was falling fast when he was champion. Hardcore fans will watch anyway. You need to attract others. David Arquette did more than Chris Benoit, Sid, Booker T, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and others in that respect. |
Well, LS already mentioned about the ratings disagreeing with you. As well, I know that "hardcore fans" weren't the only ones who thought that the Arquette title reign was unimaginably stupid. Hardcore fans are the only ones still discussing it now, because casual or non fans are not likely to be discussing pro wrestling history... That's part of why they are, at most, casual fans. But at the time, pretty much everyone I knew who heard about it - whether they were hardcore fans, casual fans, or non-fans - thought it was stupid. Even those who couldn't name a single wrestler on WCW's roster recognized that having an actor take the world title was dumb. I won't claim that my group of friends can be used an entirely accurate barometer of overall attitude towards that, but given that not one of them found any real positive in it, it does tell me at least something.
You say that Arquette did more good than many of the other champions of that era. That's your opinion, but he also did much much more harm. Having a non-wrestler as your champion devalues the other workers. Everyone knows wrestling is a work and not a sport, but its still presented that these guys in the ring are supposed to be elite athletes who are the best at what they do. The champion is the best of the best. So when the guy who is supposed to be "the best of the best" is an actor, it makes everyone else look weaker. A lot of people disliked WCW using athlete non-wrestlers like Denis Rodman, but at least you could kinda justify that with the athleticism, size, etc, ideas. But Arquette had none of that. Apparently even Arquette felt it was a bad idea. Again, I know that my friends are not the perfect measure, but I know the Arquette title win was the point where several of my friends who preferred WCW over WWF (I was always a WWF guy) gave up on the promotion. That was the breaking point.
I don't expect the WWE to cater to the hardcore fans entirely. But it is not impossible to alienate those fans - WCW did it (to their detriment and death), and the WWE can as well. And being that a lot of casual fans might tune in on TV but are often less likely to shell out significant money to watch monthly PPVs or to travel for big events, cutting off that segment of the fanbase could be very harmful. So while having a celebrity non-wrestler become champion (Trump or someone else) might bring in an a small influx of non-fans out of interest, how many would stick around and how many would start shelling out $50 a month to watch the PPVs? And while you are correct that the names like Cena and Triple H would still be there, the fact that you would have that non-wrestler beating one of these guys for that title would hardly make them look like real badasses.