Tommy Dreamer spoke about a rather dark chapter in his life on a recent episode of the House of Hardcore podcast. While discussing his battle with depression after ECW shut down, the former ECW Champion revealed he had considered murdering Paul Heyman and then committing suicide during the WrestleMania X-Seven (17) event at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
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After explaining his mental and financial state following the end of ECW, Dreamer went on to explain how he was originally booked to interfere in the TLC match between The Dudley Boyz, the Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian in order to help Bubba Ray and Devon. But plans changed and Rhyno was inserted into the match instead.
“I remember I did a show there, and I saw a sign that said, ‘Guns Welcome,’ and I was in Houston. I did an indie show, and I said, ‘What is this?’ I’m from New York, what do you mean, ‘guns welcome?’ and they said, ‘Oh you are allowed to bring a firearm into the venue.’ I was across the street from the Astrodome,” Dreamer said. “When I tell you it resonated in my head so, so much.
“That I’ll tell you what I wanted to do. It’s sick that I think this. At Wrestlemania, I was gonna hop the rail, and I was gonna whack Paul E. [Heyman] in the back of the head right at the announce table, then I was gonna whack myself,” he continued. “The ultimate martyr, I was gonna hit my pose crack, boom, pull the trigger. Because I was that insane. Don’t know if I would have went through with it, but that’s what I was thinking about every day. I was like, ‘I will go down in history.’ Pop, boom. First, they’d think it as an angle until I shot him. I was so severely depressed and so mental with rage, I needed help.”
Dreamer said what pulled him out of his mental downward spiral was a call from Jim Ross.
“Randomly I get a phone call from a number I didn’t know… I didn’t pick up, and I remember having these thoughts, and it was bad. I had a gun; I was… Man, could you think about the horribleness that I would have done for my legacy? I would have ruined Wrestlemania, which I love Wrestlemania. For everybody. But these thoughts were so, so crazed in my head, because I was like, ‘How dare this person [Heyman], he screwed my parents over. And I come from a different, kind of a mobster, mentality. I would become infamous, which is famous for the wrong reason.
“I’m glad I didn’t do it,” he continued. “But when that phone call came from Jim Ross. Again, just said leave a message. It said ‘Hey Tommy, it’s Jim Ross, just want to let you know, we are still thinking about you, we are gonna get it done, just got to hang tight. Thank you.’ Think of how stupid I would have been, how dumb and how messed up my thoughts would have been if they would have come to fruition. I am so happy I didn’t do it, I am so happy that I did get that phone call, from someone who was a stranger, I barely knew the guy.”
Along with running his own independent promotion House of Hardcore, Dreamer also works for Impact Wrestling as a member of the creative team and as a wrestler.
