David Arquette shocked the wrestling world by winning the WCW World Heavyweight Title 16 years ago today (April 25 2000). Diamond Dallas Page (DDP), was the champion at the time but he lost his title after Arquette pinned Eric Bischoff. This moment has become widely recognized as one of the final nails in the coffin of WCW during their battle against the WWE in the Monday Night Wars. DDP spoke candidly about the moment he found out he would lose his title to David Arquette.
Here is what he said:
“I’ll give you the play by play. And again, there’s my side, there’s their side and then probably what really, really happened. But I think I would be the closest to that. I remember them telling me because I was the World Champion at the time. They weren’t going to beat me for it they wanted to put it on Arquette for the PR. I just think they wanted a boost of super PR and I started laughing. I thought they were f*cking with me. You know? And I went, “So what are we really going to do?” And they said, “Well, we’re going to do this.” I’m going, “Dude, you can’t be serious” (Source: Wrestlezone).
I can imagine him not being thrilled he would be losing his title to someone who wasn’t a wrestler. This was one of the worst decisions WCW ever made and lead to the downfall of the company. Whose Idea was it to go along with it?
DDP is pretty certain the blame should fall on Vince Russo and not Eric Bischoff:
I know Eric Bischoff would have never, ever make himself the World Champion. He never, ever would have done that. Vince Russo did. Completely preposterous and ridiculous. But even more ridiculous was David Arquette becoming the World Champion. So I felt, knowing Eric as good as I did back then, that it was Russo’s call. Eric was going along because he didn’t want to stir up any heat with anybody. He went with it. He didn’t go, “Dude, that’s crazy.” So, he went with it but I would bet money, I’d bet $100,000 it wasn’t his idea (Source: Wrestlezone).