10 Best Celebrity Wrestling Matches
Lights, camera, grappling!
It's April 25, folks, which means it's time to call Jim Cornette and remind him that today is the day that David Arquette won the WCW World Heavyweight Title back in 2000.
The switch aired on the following day's Thunder and, oh boy, it did not go down well.
Done to help promote and add a bit of buzz to the ill-fated WCW co-promoted Ready to Rumble film (which was struggling at the box-office), the title change has gone down in history as one of the worst ever and is pointed at as something that helped expediate the downfall of World Championship Wrestling.
A lot of the heat fell on Arquette himself, the poor fella, who was really just doing what he was told.
He was also a genuine fan of the business and donated his WCW pay to the families of wrestlers who had passed away before their time, having since apologised for his role in the whole debacle.
You have to feel sorry for Arquette, who has spent the past several years paying dues on the independent scene and trying to get back in the good graces of wrestling fans, as seen in the acclaimed documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette.
Obviously his WCW stay is an example of when a celebrity getting involved in the action can go very wrong, something that seems to happen more often than not.
But there are examples of people from the world of other sports, music, film and television stepping into the squared circle and doing themselves and wrestling proud. It's happened quite a lot of late, but it's not exactly a new phenomenon, with celebrities being involved in great matches (on a sliding scale of course) for decades and across various promotions.
Here are, in no particular order, the ten best.
10. Kevin Greene & Steve McMichael Vs. Arn Anderson & Ric Flair - The Great American Bash 1996
Sometimes wrestling just needs to be 'fun'.
Especially when celebrities are involved in matches, because you know you're not going to get some Dean Malenko technical classic or anything.
Fun is exactly what Ric Flair and Arn Anderson's 1996 Great American Bash tag match with NFL players Kevin Green and Steve 'Mongo' McMichael was.
They kept things simple, with the football lads concentrating on nailing their cues and getting over via sheer force of personality. The Nature Boy and The Enforcer, for their part, did everything they could to make their opponents look like stars, bumping all over the place and guiding them through it as it progressed.
There was plenty of 'gaga' too, with Mongo's co-commentator Bobby Heenan running around, Randy Savage stationed at ringside to play cheerleader and a crafty finish that saw McMichael turn on his mate and join up with Flair and Anderson in the Horsemen.
Amazingly good considering the experience level of the babyface team, this was long but never really dragged and stands as one of the better examples of athletes from another sport trying their hand at pro wrestling.
Written by Lewis Howse
Features journalist for Cultaholic.com and script writer for the Cultaholic YouTube Channel.
