The Movie Star With A Complicated Role In WWE History

The worlds of professional wrestling and acting have crossed over more times than some people might originally expect. For example, the main event of the first WrestleMania in 1985 was headlined by Mr. T, one of the biggest actors in the United States at the time, where he teamed with Hulk Hogan, the biggest star in American wrestling who had just been featured in the "Rocky" series, perhaps the most successful sports movie franchise of all time. Not only that but in the current landscape of the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, the most successful and highest-paid actor in the world in recent years is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, a six-time WWE Champion and member of the TKO Group Holdings Board of Directors.

While wrestlers making the jump to the world of TV and movies has been common over the years, actors going the opposite way hasn't always worked out for the best. Out of all of the famous faces who have ever gotten their hands dirty in a squared circle, there may not be anyone more infamous than actor David Arquette.

Known for his roles in the "Scream" franchise, and the original "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" movie in 1992, Arquette's wrestling journey began when he starred in the 2000 movie "Ready To Rumble," which had heavy involvement from WCW and its roster. In order to promote the movie, Arquette started making appearances on "WCW Monday Nitro," and "WCW Thunder," which would also help the company gain ground in the ratings war against WWE, one that they were losing quite significantly by this point. Given that he was making appearances for the competition, Arquette was never going to have a great relationship with WWE, but he didn't have a great relationship with wrestling after what actually happened in WCW.

It's a booking decision that is often looked at as the moment World Championship Wrestling finally reached the point of no return and conceded defeat to WWE in the Monday Night Wars, the night David Arquette won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. On an episode of "Thunder" in April 2000, Arquette pinned Eric Bischoff in a tag team match that also included DDP and Jeff Jarrett to become champion in one of the most controversial moments in WCW history.

In the years that followed, Arquette has made it abundantly clear that he, much like wrestling fans at the time, thought giving him the title was a terrible idea and that he didn't want to do it. He even told DDP right before the match that the company "can't do this" because it was such a stupid plan, something that Diamond Dallas Page agreed with, but since it was his job, he couldn't really say no. Arquette would drop the title back to Jarrett at Slamboree 2000 in a Triple Cage match and would go on to donate all of the money he made from his short stint in WCW to the families of the late Owen Hart and Brian Pillman, as well as Darren "Droz" Drozdov, who had suffered the career-ending injury that left him paralyzed just a few months before Arquette's WCW tenure.

Years after his chaotic time in WCW, many people thought that Arquette had washed his hands of professional wrestling, despite the actor admitting to being a huge fan of the business growing up. However, that all changed in 2010 when he appeared on the December 13, 2010 episode of "WWE Raw" as a special guest, which didn't exactly go to plan for a variety of different reasons.

During a 2022 interview with Chris Van Vliet, Arquette would open up about his WWE experience, which saw him team up with Alex Riley for a handicap match against Randy Orton during an era of WWE that many fans don't remember fondly. 

Arquette explained that he wasn't in the best place when he pitched the idea of promoting "Scream 4" on "Raw" to Triple H as it was recently announced that he and his wife, Courtney Cox, would be separating. The actor stated that he stayed up all night the night before, and that he was losing his voice on the day of the show, but powered through and tried to get some heel heat to keep the fans engaged. However, in treating WWE's flagship show like a house show and going off script, Arquette said that he annoyed WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to the point where he was never invited back for any guest spots ever again.

Despite a rough start to his wrestling life in WCW and WWE, Arquette would attempt to give back to the wrestling business by travelling up and down the independent circuit in 2018 and 2019, with the footage being documented in the 2020 documentary "You Cannot Kill David Arquette." The most famous match he was involved in from his time on the indies was when he travelled to GCW to face Nick Gage in a deathmatch, something that Arquette also regrets as he didn't understand how bloody and violent it would end up being. The match was also a topic of discussion during the episode of "Dark Side of the Ring" dedicated to Gage, which Arquette also took part in, revealing that he felt like he was in a real fight as the match progressed.