Nick Gage, current star of Dark Side Of The Ring and notorious deathmatch wrestler, has spoken about his infamous match with actor David Arquette.
Gage faced Arquette as the most unlikely WCW Champion in history returned to wrestling in 2018. Arquette challenged Gage for the GCW World Title at Joey Janela’s LA Confidential in November of that year.
Cameras were there filming for Arquette’s documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette and what happened during the match with Gage became one of that film’s key talking points.
The two men met in a death match which suited Nick Gage, with Arquette getting cut in a planned spot. However, immediately something was very apparently wrong and Arquette clamped his hand to his neck to stem the flow of blood. The incident made headlines in the wrestling world and beyond, with Arquette going to the hospital and then thankfully recovering.
Nick Gage discussed the events with Chris Van Vliet:
“My wife was like you’re on TMZ! He needed to stick to the script, but he went off of it. It wasn’t my fault, I know how to do things to take care of my opponent. I think he got scared, but relax, you’re not the first guy. We had the discussion, it’s entertainment. I’m not going to cut you badly if you stand still and relax. He spun when I had the glass in my hand, it went in his neck. In my head, I thought I killed him.”
“To get the glass, I had to go in the back and I saw Chris Hero. Man, I hadn’t seen him in ages but I saw him in the middle of the match. I think David was just doing it for the documentary. I went out and explained it to him the night before at a steak house. He wanted to do fire, I said no, it’s dangerous. I tried to explain that all of this is real. I think when I turned it up a notch he thought I was shooting on him. But what do I do, take it easy on the actor? I treated him like I treat everybody else.”‘
Nick Gage was recently featured in an episode of season three of Dark Side Of The Ring. Gage’s tumultuous life took a turn when he was jailed for his part in a bank robbery in 2011.
Gage was also recently confronted by AEW star and the IWGP United States Champion Jon Moxley after a title defence at a GCW event. The two men were reported to have brawled down the street for fifteen minutes.
Credit: Insight with Chris Van Vliet