Y 2 Jake

David Arquette was a great champion. His one reign was more memorable than several dozen real wrestlers reigns combined.

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King Steventon

Memorable because it was so bad.

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Y 2 Jake

I don't see what difference that really makes. There isn't much to remember about the final 18 months of WCW. At least that title win get's people like us talking and if it wasn't for that title win then WCW would've died sooner. Not by going out of business, but by being a crappy promotion in which nothing intresting happened. Wrestling forums wouldn't be as dead as they are now if there was a champion like David Arquette.

The match in which he lost the belt was also very entertaiing. Which in my eyes makes his title reign more of a success than most, considering some World Champions put on shit match after shit match.

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Bigpapa42

WCW had already started to move the belt around pretty quickly at times, but the Fingerpoke was where things really started to come apart in that regard. After the Fingerpoke and Hogan's reign, WCW became reliant on quick changes and shenanigans (belt being vacated, Nash awarding it to himself, Arquette, etc). By the point that Arquette held the belt, I think it it had lost most of the value it once held.

I am going to wager a guess that you believe that any publicity is good publicity? Because "people taking notice" for something being very stupid and a bad idea is not a good thing.

If the E decided to make Donald Trump the world champ, it would get the media and fans talking. But not in a positive manner. It would be what Arquette was - cheap publicity that did harm in a fair number of ways.

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Y 2 Jake

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.

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King Steventon

I'm sure WCW's ratings at the time would pretty much disprove that first paragraph.

I've never bought the "any publicity is good publicity" arguement, but then again publicity and popularity have never been relevant when discussion quality.

As for the thread topic... seems like just another TNA swerve. That's all TNA is really, a series of swerves with no pay off.

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Bigpapa42

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.

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iamthedestroyer

If they explain it along the lines of Angle wanted the belt back so badly that he was willing to work with and offer his mortal Samoan enemy Joe a spot in "the most elite group of wrestlers ever assembled" The Main Event Mafia it would put the belt over. So long as they emphasized how much Angle and Joe hated each other, yet Angle was willing to put his pride to the side and ignore that just for an extra CHANCE that he might win the belt. (Which he did).

Joe could explain that it was a no brainer for him. Despite not liking the guys in the MEM he knows that if he were to form a working business relationship with them by becoming a member not only would he have them to watch his back, but he'd also have enough pull to make more money than he's ever made. They can also explain that Angle promised Joe the first shot at the belt. AJ Styles wins a number one contenders match for the next PPV.

Angle VS Joe on Impact ending in a no contest with AJ Styles interfering with a chair ambushing both Angle and Joe. As a result of AJ screwing Joe out of his shot Joe is added to the match at the PPV. That sets up Angle VS Joe VS Styles, eventually saving a singles match with Styles going over Angle at Bound For Glory for the belt.

Y 2 Jake

The rating were low, they were before, during and after. But the week after he won the title they did do better than usual. I'm not claiming it was a great number, it was probably only a few thousand people at best. But him becoming champion still did more than anoybody else around that time.


When I'm on about hardcore fans still talking about it, I'm mostly on about how much enjoyment they get/got from the angle. Most title reigns aren't worth remembering. But for some reason people still talk about what is an irrelevant title reign.

Nobody talks about other reigns from WCW around that time. Not even Vince Russo.

I fail to see how Arquette was in any way a worse champion than Russo.

I'm not debating how stupid it was. But it is wrestling. It's nowhere near as stupid as a lot of things you see.

A failure or not, one positive is that they were trying to attract attention. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

How did he do harm when nobody was really watching the show anyway?

I think there have been several champions over the years who most would classify as non-workers.

It's a fair point. But world champions haven't been presented as the best of the best in a long time.

Depends. Have Trump refuse to defend the title and you could almost guarantee that when he did defend it people would want to see the match.

All angles involving celebrities are short term. It's a break from the norm.

Well, Triple H can seemingly only win by using a sledgehammer and Cena is 0-1 against Kevin Federline.

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Sir Nicky Talent

Both companies have managed to take away the credibilites of their world titles. For TNA, it started with Sting winning for the third time at BFG and it just took a downhill plunge. Even if they gave the title to Joe, with his new persona and the nation of violence thing, it still would be awful.

No one at the moment is built up enough to win the TNA world title, except maybe Styles, which won't happen.

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