David Penzer Defends David Arquette’s WCW Title Win, Critical of Vince Russo’s Work in WCW
Show: Wrestling Epicenter
Guest: David Penzer
Date: 04/26/2024
Your Host: James Walsh
On the 24 year anniversary of David Arquette winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, the man who was “Sitting Ringside” for all of WCW’s glories and folloes shares his take on that subject and so much more in our exclusive new interview. That’s right, David Penzer, the voice of WCW who has an exciting new book with many different packages available to get your paws on some pretty incredible backstage WCW material that collectors would probably kill for, gives us a sneak peak into his new book as we pick the brain of a very wise man for an hour!
You can pick up David Penzer’s new book at www.DavidPenzerBook.com for multiple buying options. But, you can also get it off Amazon.com if you jsut want the book with none of the bells and whistles.
Please check out www.WrestlingEpicenter.com to listen to this interview on YouTube and our classic interviews with David Penzer through the years dating back to 2003. All of our classic interviews and cntent is available there free of charge with interviews that range from the likes of Hulk Hogan to Randy Savage to Sherri Martel and beyond. We’ve been at this a long time and we’re not planning on going anywhere!
If you would please promote David Penzer’s book by publishing this article, we would appreciate it! But, please remember to link back to our site as well!
DAVID PENZER:
On including never before seen backstage content from WCW:
“I’m a bit of a hoarder! I admit it! So, I was going through my office and I found a bunch of formats that either have never been seen or have only been seen by WCW employees… I’m talking about formats dating back to the mid 1990’s! We’re talking WCW Worldwide, Saturday Night, Nitro, Thunder… And, I got to thinking, A. “I’ve got to find a way to get these out there somehow.” And B. “I’d like to find a way to monetize it”, if I’m being honest! You know? The real estate business has been a little slow. So, everything helps!”
On how he ended up paired with Guy Evans:
“I put a picture of one of them (the formats) up on Twitter. And, I got a message from Guy Evans. I had spoken to him before. He did the book on Nitro, which was the best wrestling book I’ve ever read. And, he did Eric Bischoff’s second autobiography. He suggested we do a scrap-book. And, I was like, “Ok!” And, we did that and laced it with a lot of stories like the ones I’m going to tell today (in this interview).”
On the format for the last Nitro being in the book:
“The format for the last WCW Nitro is in there! I don’t think anybody ever has seen that. I know what it says but I’m sure some people are wondering how much detail the format would go into involving what was happening over in Ohio with Vince McMahon interacting on our show, and Shane McMahon interacting on our show.”
On David Arquette and Vince Russo winning the WCW Title:
“The format for the Thunder when David Arquette won the World Title is on there. The format of the Nitro where Vince Russo won the World Title is in there also. By the way, the latter was far worse than the former, in my opinion. I’ll interrupt myself. I had David Arquette on my podcast when I had my podcast. And, I worked with him on a Legends of Wrestling I helped helped with Brian Knobbs of the Nasty Boys. And, after one of the events, David’s wife came up to me and she said, “I want to thank you.” I said, “For what?” She said, “You don’t know how much it has been weighing on him. David thought he killed WCW! And, you were the first person who has ever been able to convince him that he didn’t!” I really appreciate that. And, to this day, if I ever text David Arquette, he texts me right back! But, I told him, “Russo put the belt on himself! At least putting the belt on you got us in the USA Today and on Entertainment Tonight! Should they have put the belt on you? Eh! It didn’t offend me, personally. It was a publicity stunt! You got to live your dream and we got some free publicity! It was a win-win!” Now, Russo winning the title? That is a different story. And, we can get into that later.”
On the book looking at David Penzer in a way people might not have ever seen before:
“When we started talking, Guy started asking me about my upbringing and my life and I started thinking that isn’t what we had discussed. But, he wrote the book about Nitro and that was about the best book I had ever read. He found people he interviewed for that book that I had forgotten ever worked for WCW. He talked to executives who opened up about WCW in ways they probably wish they hadn’t. Anyway, he called me up one day and said, “We’re doing two books!” I said, “Yeah, volume 1 that ends when WCW was sold and then Volume 2, everything since.” He goes, “No! I want to do your autobiography! Your story is fascinating. I like your take on the players.” I said, “But it is still going to have the stuff about the last Nitro, right?” He said, “It might. But, I think your story should be told.” So, if people buy it to read the programs and to see the stuff about things like the last Nitro, hopefully they’ll see stuff about me and my improbable journey into pro wrestling as a 5’6 Jewish kid.”
On when he realized WCW was massive:
“I knew the nWo was big. When Scott Hall came down to the ring, grabbed my microphone in Macon, Georgia, and cut the promo that changed the face of professional wrestling, “You want a war, you’ve got a war!” That was based off the WWE’s “Scheme Gene” skits. But, when I really knew we were huge was when Nitro sold out the Super Dome in New Orleans. That was the Nitro where Diamond Dallas Page made it seem like he was going to join the nWo but turned and hit Hall and Nasy with the Diamond Cutter. That was when I realized how huge WCW had gotten. There was a time not all that long before this that we were hard pressed to get 800 people into an arena. And, there we were selling out Domes! It seemed like we could never be stopped! Obviously, we were wrong.”
On when he realized WCW was headed in the wrong direction:
“You know, I never thought it would go under. I never thought it would go out of business. And, I certainly never thought it would be sold to WWE for next to nothing. I never really thought that but I do remember when Eric Bischoff was buying WCW and he and Fusient Media were in their “due diligence” period, I kind of knew that no matter what happened, this was going to change. I had no idea it would end up taking the turn it did so quickly and closing up months later. But, it would not have mattered. As soon as Time Warner and the other company merged and Ted Turner went from having absolute power to having 33 and a 3rd percent power, WCW was going to be diluted and they were going to get rid of it.”
On his opinion of Vince Russo:
“I do get into that a lot in the book and I don’t want to give away too much. Let me say this. Vince Russo is a nice guy. On a personal level, I like him. But, as a professional wrestling writer, on a scale of 1 to 10? I give him a 0. Again, it isn’t personal. But what I say about it in the book, some people really aren’t going to like. It just is the way it is. What I like about professional wrestling and what he likes are different. It was a little different in TNA when Jeff Jarrett was able to reign him in a little bit. But, even some of the gaga he wrote for TNA I just didn’t like. But, when he was unmanaged, I just don’t think he was good at the job he was given.”
