WWE: 10 hilarious gimmick matches to distract you from quarantine

1. Ready to Rumble Cage Match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship: David Arquette (c) vs. Jeff Jarrett vs. Diamond Dallas Page (Slamboree 2000)

More from Daily DDT

• It’s time for Adam Cole and MJF to drop the ROH tag team titles
• Tom Lawlor talks MLW return, AEW opportunity, CM Punk’s WWE return and more
• Eddie Kingston stands to gain the most from the AEW Continental Classic
• Trish Stratus on WWE NXT would help elevate that women’s division
• Randy Orton signs with SmackDown to go after The Bloodline

Look, I honestly tried not to include anything from WCW in this list, partly because it opens a wormhole of bad things, but this one and the story behind it is just too hilarious to leave out. For anyone who doesn’t know any of the history behind this, buckle up and come along for the ride.

In early 2000, a movie called Ready to Rumble was released. It took $24 million to make, and only netted $12.5 million at the box office. This movie, made in partnership with WCW, featured multiple WCW wrestlers from the time, including Diamond Dallas Page, Goldberg, Sting, Randy Savage, Booker T, Bam Bam Bigelow, and more, and also starred David Arquette.

Arquette, who had really come into his own as an actor as part of the Scream trilogy, starred as one of two leading characters in this fever dream of a movie. If you want to laugh at terrible content, Ready to Rumble is worth renting. The movie also led to what many consider to be the worst decision in WCW history, which some believe ultimately triggered the final downfall and death of the company.

Less than a week after the movie premiered, David Arquette showed up on an episode of WCW Thunder and jumped the barricade to confront Eric Bischoff, leading to a match between them a few weeks later on Nitro. After pinning Bischoff with the help of Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon, despite DDP being the villain in Ready to Rumble, the next episode of WCW Thunder featured a tag team match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

David Arquette teamed with reigning champion DDP against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff, with the stipulation that whoever scored the pinfall would be the champion. Arquette pinned Bischoff, and was crowned the WCW World Champion. Arquette’s title reign only lasted 12 days before he defended it in a Ready to Rumble Cage Match, which was similar (but not the same) as the three-tiered cage featured in the movie Ready to Rumble.

Arquette had barely any physical activity in the match where the victor would have to climb to the top of the structure and retrieve the title. Mike Awesome and Chris Kanyon also ended up a part of the proceedings, which ended with Awesome chunking Kanyon off the second tier of the cage onto the entrance ramp in a bump that would make Mick Foley cringe. In the end, Arquette turned on DDP and helped Jeff Jarrett win the match and the WCW World Championship.

Diamond Dallas Page and David Arquette have both said since that they knew it was a terrible idea, but Vince Russo insisted. Ready to Rumble has a runtime of 107 minutes, and this match lasted just over 15 minutes.

If you’ve got a few hours and change to spend watching people waste money on absurdity and bad writing in early 2000, there may be no better way to do that than watching Ready to Rumble and the absurd match that followed.