9. Hes Suffered Numerous Injuries, Including A Broken Neck & A Broken Back...Oh, And The Testicle Thing, Of Course...
You dont get a nickname like The Innovator of Violence without getting a little bit of blood on your hands, and Tommy Dreamer is certainly no stranger to pain. Long-time fans will vividly remember ECWs infamous Singapore cane match, when Sandman beat the ever loving sh*t out of Dreamer with a cane, while the masochistic Dreamer begged, please sir, can I have another? Well, any career boasting a highlight reel as brutal and bloody as Dreamers is bound to be injury plagued. His list of wrestling-related injuries is a long one, and could probably be easier summed up with the following statement, If it can be hurt, Tommy Dreamer has probably hurt it at some point in his career. Hes broken his nose three times; suffered 13 snapped fingers and even cracked his heel. Hes also suffered (at least) 16 serious concussions. Dreamer endured both a broken neck and a broken back whilst in the original ECW and, following the WWEs first ECW One Night Stand Pay Per View; he genuinely thought he might lose an ear. As Dreamer said on Stone Cold Steve Austins podcast, Bubba caned me in my ear so hard that the doctor said my ear may fall off, thats how severe trauma I had. I wanted my ear to fall off while I was sitting in that office (...) I wanted to show that Vince (McMahon), even though my ear may fall off, if my ear falls off at this desk, I want you to know that my ear fell off for you. Incredibly, Dreamer claims that he has never had surgery, even when he broke his neck and back. He had no health insurance at the time, and, quite frankly, couldnt afford to not be working, so he simply healed up as quickly as he could and got back in the ring. Now thats hardcore! Perhaps the most wince-inducing injury Dreamer ever received, however, was when Jerry The King Lawler caned him in the testicle, nearly rupturing it in the process. Following the incident, doctors had to remove 20CCs of blood from his swollen nutsack. With needles. Ouch. Obviously, Dreamer regards the broken back as the worst injury that hes received whilst wrestling (although personally, my money is firmly on the testicle thing), but hes also been set on fire, thrown into jagged spools of barbed wire (and razor wire) and has, in his own words bled buckets in some matches. On experiencing pain, Dreamer is relatively nonchalant. As in meh, its part of the job, to him its like dealing with that pain-in-the-@$$ customer, or burning yourself on the coffee machine... "When I'm at home and I'll stub my toe, I'll run around screaming like a little girl. But the energy and the adrenaline I get performing in front of people, most of the times I feel no pain. That's how I go out there and do it. After the match, I'll usually collapse and cry in the back, but out there, I'm pretty good."
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
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Latcho Drom,
- CQ
