7 Questions With Tommy Dreamer
2. It’s A Work. Or Is It?
You were a diehard wrestling fan when you were growing up. Do you remember the moment when you discovered it was a work? Attitudes were different in the 1970s and 1980s. Wrestlers were forbidden from talking openly about the business, as you’re doing today to What Culture.
“Some days, I still don’t think it is. I was a proud, proud believer. I remember when they did an exposé of wrestling here in the States on 20/20 [broadcast on ABC in February 1985]. My jaw dropped. Then I remember reading about wrestlers cutting themselves, and I was, like, ‘That’s how they did it.’
“To say that it’s a work. The outcomes are predetermined, yes, but it’s hard to master how to figure out how to put this stuff together. And sometimes when you’re wrestling . . . I fought every ex-UFC guy when I was in WWE, and some of them didn’t know that term — that it was a work. And I’ve also been a part of many real fights and riots. So that’s why I say, at times, I still don’t know if it is.”