I recently watched You Cannot Kill David Arquette available on Amazon Prime for $5.99. I watched this as a fan of David’s acting work and as someone who has been involved with independent wrestling for about 16 years. This also may contain some spoilers, as I took notes while watching.
Let’s clear the air – in my opinion, David Arquette winning the WCW title did not “kill” wrestling. So many other things had happened by then that many claimed “killed” wrestling. And down the line more things would happen that people would claim “killed” wrestling. It’s all subjective.
David’s journey in this documentary somehow touches just about every layer of wrestling that one can go through: fame, backyard wrestling, training, shady promoters, matches not going as planned, and more…just not in the typical order. All to feel respected by the world of wrestling.
We see David go from being kicked out of a Legends of Wrestling show and being forced to buy a ticket, to being at a wrestling autograph signing with no one at his table, to working a backyard wrestling show all fairly quickly.
After this, he seeks training. David goes to a variety of places to seek training, possibly to get the full experience. One of those places is in Mexico where David trains with luchadores and even takes part in street wrestling.
We go from here to David seeking further training from Peter Avalon and Tyler Bateman, both of whom have seen joined All Elite Wrestling and Ring of Honor.
From here, David really hits the ground running and does a “tour” of the indies making stops in promotions like Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, Alpha 1 Wrestling, House of Hardcore, Tried n True, and Game Changer Wrestling.
Game Changer Wrestling is where David wrestled death match wrestling superstar Nick Gage. Nick Gage is one of the most respected wrestlers in and out of the death match scene. He once technically died as a result of an injury in a death match, only to return to action seven days later. Why did I include this information? Because David Arquette essentially had a death match with Nick Gage. They used pizza cutters, doors, and light bulbs in the match. There’s a time in the match where Gage has a broken light tube to Arquette’s neck. It seems like David panics a bit and there’s a struggle. David exits the ring then comes back and finishes the match. Because he respects wrestling.
Post-match, David has to go to the hospital to have his cuts tended to. The gash on his neck appeared to be very deep and had a lot of blood coming out of it.
To wind down the documentary, David has a match at Legends of Wrestling, the same one he had to buy a ticket at. His match is with Ken Anderson, formerly of WWE and Impact Wrestling. There’s a lot of build to this match and David’s wife, Christina even appears as his “Miss Elizabeth.”
It’s after this match when it seems like David is finally accepted by the world of wrestling, which is all he wanted. He wanted to earn the respect and prove that he loved the sport and I think he did just that.
A side note – something that I thought was great to watch throughout the film was how his family maybe didn’t think this was the best idea, or maybe they didn’t get it. But by the end of it, they were all extremely supportive and excited for David’s journey.
David went on to be ranked in the PWI 500 as the 453rd best wrestler in the world in 2019. All in all, this was a fantastic watch. As a fan of David Arquette’s acting and someone who appreciated him doing what he did to earn the respect of wrestling, I absolutely enjoyed this film.
“Wrestling’s not fake.” – David Arquette
Righteousjesse is an independent wrestling commentator, ring announcer, IWTV VJ, and occasional wrestler. Follow on Twitter: @RighteousJesse
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