David Arquette and Vince Russo holding WCW’s World Heavyweight Championship provide Jim Cornette with an unusually clear symbol for his larger argument about the company’s decline. Rather than treating those title changes as merely two notorious booking decisions, Cornette frames them as evidence of a philosophy that stripped wrestling’s top prize of the importance accumulated through decades of champions. That focus gives the piece a stronger through-line than a general catalogue of everything Cornette dislikes about Russo.
The historical setup is particularly useful. Cornette connects the championship to names including Harley Race, Jack Brisco, the Funks, Ric Flair, Sting, Goldberg and Ron Simmons, explaining why fans were supposed to regard its holder as the promotion’s leading wrestler. His central argument—that championships matter only when the promotion consistently convinces its audience that they matter—is clearly expressed. The comparison between lengthy championship reigns and Russo’s rapid succession of title changes also illustrates why Cornette believes constant turnover diminished the accomplishment of winning it.
Arquette’s championship victory becomes the first major case study, with Cornette emphasizing both the bizarre mechanics of winning a singles championship during a tag-team match and the decision’s connection to Ready to Rumble. The sequence effectively supports his criticism that short-term publicity was being prioritized over the championship’s long-term value. However, the presentation moves from describing events to assigning responsibility very quickly, and claims about the reaction of essentially the entire wrestling audience are delivered as rhetorical certainty rather than demonstrated evidence.
Russo subsequently winning the championship himself makes Cornette’s argument even easier to understand. The cage-match description captures the absurdity he sees in a non-wrestling creative figure becoming champion after being speared through the cage, while Russo’s concussion and immediate vacation of the title give the story a suitably chaotic conclusion. Cornette’s observation that the belt had now been associated with both an actor and a writer is a concise explanation of why he regards these incidents as more damaging than ordinary bad matches or unsuccessful storylines.
The broader attempt to connect Russo’s booking with WCW’s collapse is less disciplined. Cornette explicitly acknowledges at the beginning that Russo did not single-handedly kill WCW, and references the involvement of executives as well as the company’s deteriorating financial position. Yet later passages lean heavily toward a simple cause-and-effect narrative in which Russo’s creative decisions decimated WCW’s numbers before the company was sold. Based on what is presented here, that may support an argument that Russo contributed to the decline, but it does not establish how much responsibility belonged to him compared with the other problems Cornette briefly acknowledges.
Cornette’s personality is simultaneously the presentation’s greatest source of entertainment and its biggest limitation. His descriptions of Russo’s appearance, wrestling ability and personality are vivid, frequently funny and unmistakably personal, but insults about Russo’s body, intelligence and even eventual grave add little to the substantive case. The strongest material does not need that hostility: Arquette’s title victory, Russo booking himself as champion, repeated championship changes and Cornette’s explanation of why wrestling requires audience investment already provide plenty to criticize.
Pros
- Uses Arquette and Russo becoming WCW champion as concrete examples of the larger argument about devaluing wrestling championships.
- Historical context explains why the World Heavyweight Championship carried significance beyond being a storyline accessory.
- The contrast between long championship reigns and rapid title changes clearly communicates Cornette’s philosophy of building prestige.
- Cornette acknowledges that WCW’s collapse had multiple contributors rather than literally blaming Russo alone.
- Energetic storytelling keeps a potentially familiar piece of wrestling history entertaining.
Cons
- Personal attacks on Russo frequently substitute ridicule for analysis and distract from stronger criticisms of his booking.
- The connection between Russo’s creative decisions, WCW’s declining numbers and the company’s eventual sale is asserted more strongly than the material presented establishes.
- Sweeping descriptions of fan reaction are treated as universal without supporting evidence.
- The broader institutional problems behind WCW’s decline receive comparatively little examination despite being acknowledged at the outset.
Cornette builds a persuasive case that a championship loses its power when the promotion itself repeatedly treats it as disposable, and WCW supplies him with striking examples. His historical perspective and storytelling make the argument engaging, but the relentless personal contempt for Russo and simplified treatment of WCW’s larger collapse keep an effective critique from becoming a more rigorous one.
