Credit: Dangerous Minds / WWE

There are two kinds of people in this world, and you can tell them apart by asking them about the actor David Arquette.

Most of the time, you’ll get a strange look about why you’re asking about the guy who played Dewey from Scream? There’s not a lot else to the guy other than his other than marrying Courtney Cox. You remember that Friends episode after their wedding where everyone in the opening credits is listed with ‘Arquette’ as part of their surnames? Good times. Then you get the other kind of person, the kind of person who’ll know exactly why you’re asking about him, of all people.

You see, these are a very specific kind of salt of the earth, or scum of the earth, depending on how long they’ve been in the hobby, called professional wrestling fans. Y’know who had an absolutely baffling stint in the pro-wrestling industry? One Mr David Arquette. It may have been 25 human years ago, but we’re wrestling fans. We have long, long memories, especially for things we try hard to forget, and Arquette’s stint in World Championship Wrestling is widely considered one of the worst pro wrestling stories of its era.

Only those who were there will know just how impressive it is to be the worst thing about early 2000s WCW. Under the shit-encrusted pen of head writer Vince Russo, the company’s flagship show Monday Nitro became a hilariously awful, car-crash TV version of itself. One filled with cringe-inducingly awful storylines, baffling celebrity involvement (more on that later) and the actual wrestling becoming a footnote to a company with the world ‘Wrestling’ in its literal name. The thing is, though, that “baffling celebrity involvement” doesn’t actually apply to David Arquette.

You see, Arquette was and always has been a huge professional wrestling fan ever since he was a kid. Not only that, but his appearance in WCW was to promote the film Ready To Rumble, a film about the pro-wrestling industry that WCW and its wrestlers featured heavily in. However, what should have been a fairly straightforward bit of cross promotion got out of control when David Arquette, Dewey from Scream, didn’t just start fighting WCW wrestlers, didn’t just start having matches in WCW, he won their world title.

Why did David Arquette win a world championship?!

Now, people not involved in wrestling might be wondering what the big deal is. Wrestling isn’t real, right? The “championship belt” is a prop, so what’s the big deal? The thing is, you’re right. In fact, you have the same attitude towards pro-wrestling that Vince Russo has! Congratulations, never, ever work in pro-wrestling. Let’s put it in a way that most nerds will understand. Remember Game of Thrones? Yeah, say what you will about that ending but we were all in on that shit 12 years ago.

Remember how weird it felt when Ed Sheeran turned up as a special guest star? Singin’ a little song and giving a single, barely convincing line read, reminding us all that none of this was real and didn’t matter? Yeah, imagine if he’d killed The Night King. After all, none of it was real. It’s a story. Anything could happen so what’s the big deal? It would have probably been a better finale than the actual show so why not? It just feels wrong, doesn’t it? Flies in the face of the story being told and cheapens the whole thing.

People felt the same way at the time. In fact, it was probably the largest of the thousand cuts that killed WCW in the early 2000s. Not only that, but the whole ordeal did real, tangible damage to Arquette’s credibility as an actor. Probably not helped by the fact that Ready To Rumble was a gigantic pile of steaming garbage as well. This lead to a career downturn for the next decade and a half. He kept working, and made the occasional appearance in the ongoing Scream franchise, but the man’s days as a movie star were up.

Arquette spent the next decade and change gamely trying to live down his stint as a professional wrestler, becoming something of a punchline in the industry as the face of one of the whole art form’s lowest moments. In fact, it was this status as a punchline that led to something quite remarkable happening in 2018. The news broke that David Arquette was getting professional wrestling training and would be debuting for indie promotion Championship Wrestling from Hollywood in July 2018. After a few decent efforts, the big one was announced.

Shortly after he debuted, it was announced that he would face famed independent wrestler Nick Gage in a deathmatch. A blood and guts-filled spectacle where anything goes, with everything from chairs and tables to pizza cutters and barbed wire used as weapons. It was clear that Arquette wasn’t doing this for an easy payday. This was something he cared about and he was willing to bleed for it. Reader, bleed he did. From the neck.

A blown spot in the match saw Arquette’s neck cut open by an errant fluorescent light tube. After briefly abandoning the ring, an understandable reaction to “being about to die” I’m sure you’ll agree, the mad bastard finished the match with a bandaged up neck. He then went to hospital, where the wound was bad enough to need operating on. I really can’t stress enough how much he put off going to the hospital until the match was finished.

Arquette spent the next two years as a working professional wrestler, working the American independent scene and doing what, for decades, had seemed impossible. Actually earning the respect of wrestling fans. Speaking as one myself, whether any right-thinking person actually wants the respect of wrestling fans is one hell of a question. This was clearly unfinished business for Arquette though and a sign that whatever crazy dream you might have, it’s never too late to chase it and it might not even be too late to achieve it.