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Vince Russo Thinks David Arquette as WCW Champion Was a Success. No, Seriously.

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I've thrown quite a few jabs at Vince Russo on this blog for his horrible booking decisions and bizarre gimmick matches, but this takes the cake. What Vince Russo said on the most recent edition of The Gerweck Report podcast is without a doubt the stupidest thing I have ever heard him say. He has said things like Kevin Owens would never draw money in WWE, but this is far worse. You ready for this? Seriously, this is incredible ignorance right here. Alright...here it goes...
VINCE RUSSO THINKS THAT BOOKING DAVID ARQUETTE AS WCW CHAMPION WAS NOT ONLY A GOOD IDEA BUT ALSO SUCCESSFUL.
No seriously, I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't heard it myself, but take a listen right here. Russo says that the entire title reign was a publicity stunt, that it was successful because it got on the cover of USA Today and Arquette shot a segment with Courtney Cox & Kurt Russell once with the belt, and that the "freaking morons" in the Internet wrestling community "think wrestling is real" and "don't understand that it's a business."
OK, where to begin. First off, I just find it incredibly ironic that Vince Russo, the guy who less than a week ago was bitching about how "a middle-weight (at best) beat not one, but two heavyweights in the same night" when Finn Balor beat Rusev and Roman Reigns on RAW, is calling people morons for thinking an actor as world champion is a bad idea and not realistic. You can piss right off with that argument, bro. Second, if wrestling is a business, then how about we look at it from a business perspective, shall we?

Pay-Per-View Buys

Here are the buy rates from Souled Out 2000 (the first WCW pay-per-view of 2000) and Greed (the last WCW pay-per-view) from the Indeed Wrestling site:
Souled Out 2000
1/16/2000
0.26
0.25

115,000
Superbrawl X
2/20/2000
0.15
0.15

70,000
Uncensored 2000
3/19/2000
0.13
0.13

60,000
Spring Stampede 2000
4/16/2000
0.25
0.27

115,000
Slamboree 2000
5/7/2000
0.14
0.14

65,000
Great American Bash 2000
6/11/2000
0.19
0.20

85,000
Bash at the Beach 2000
7/9/2000
0.22
0.25

100,000
New Blood Rising
8/13/2000
0.18
0.18

85,000
Fall Brawl 2000
9/17/2000
0.16
0.16

75,000
Halloween Havoc 2000
10/29/2000
0.15
0.15

70,000
Mayhem 2000
11/26/2000
0.12

55,000
Starrcade 2000
12/17/2000
0.11

50,000
Sin
1/14/2001
0.17
0.10

80,000
Superbrawl Revenge
2/19/2001
0.15

70,000
Greed
3/18/2001
0.10

50,000
The reason I highlighted those two specific shows is because Spring Stampede 2000 & Slamboree 2000 were the shows that fell in between Arquette's world title win, with him actually defending it at Slamboree 2000. As a result of Arquette winning the belt, Slamboree did 50,000 fewer buys than Spring Stampede, and only one show, Bash at the Beach 2000, hit 100,000 buys again. So clearly this wasn't a good business move from a pay-per-view buys standpoint.

TV Ratings

Now granted, WCW was pretty much done for in terms of the Monday Night Wars, as RAW had beaten Nitro in terms of ratings for over 70 weeks in a row when Arquette won the belt, but him winning certainly didn't bring in better ratings. The last Nitro before Arquette won the belt got a 3.1 rating, and the next one after he won the belt got a 2.5, over half a point less. Nitro would rarely make it back to or above 3.1 after that, and they were all after the Arquette title reign was over. So, not only did this not improve pay-per-view buys, but it also did not improve TV ratings.

So, from a business standpoint, David Arquette's title win resulted in fewer pay-per-view buy rates and Nitro ratings didn't improve. I'm still failing to see how this was a good idea. But hey, at least you got on the cover of USA Today once!
There's one other thing he says on that show and I wanted to address and that is the fact that he thinks  that because people still talk about David Arquette winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, it was successful. Yes, Vince Russo, people do, in fact, still talk about David Arquette as world champion. They talk about it when bringing up the worst moments in the history of wrestling. It's in the same conversation as Katie Vick, Claire Lynch, and Edge kidnapping Paul Bearer as one of, if not the worst angles in wrestling history. And it clearly bothers Russo that so many people give him sh*t for booking the angle since he's calling them morons and assholes.
The fact that Vince Russo can confidently say the putting WCW's World Championship on an actor was a good idea, despite an almost unanimously negative reaction from fans, zero improvements towards television ratings and a drop in pay-per-view buy numbers just because the angle got on the cover of USA Today and they got a throwaway one-off segment with Courtney Cox and Kurt Russell just shows how dense he really is. I've disagreed with a lot of the things he's said in the past, but this is flat out ridiculous bro.
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