Tommy Dreamer Interview: IMPACT's Resurgence, Victory Road, His Career & More

You've always been incredibly fan-friendly and willing to give back. What are some of the most memorable interactions you've had with fans over the years?

Dreamer: I love it. When we talk about social media, I have two stories for you. There was a little girl who was losing her sight and my father was losing his vision. This is when I left WWE and the mother contacted me and said, “You're my daughter's favorite wrestler and she wants to see you before she loses her sight.” IMPACT took care of her, great times. She just graduated high school and is going into college and I still have correspondence with her mom. Just last night, on my own Twitch channel, I had a girl who I met when she was four weeks old. I put it out on social media, “Looking forward to coming to Detroit.” A guy told me a story about how I and ECW changed his life. He was on his last string of life. He was ready to end his life. Then he saw me get chokeslammed from the top of a building. He said, “I had a gun, I had alcohol, and I was ready to kill myself. Then I saw you as I was flipping through channels and thought 'What the hell is this?' I literally put off my suicide to see what happened to you. Right then and there, I realized I cared about somebody and I didn't know you. I cared about somebody else's well being. From that moment on, I got clean and sober.”

He told me, “I'm about to have a daughter. I'm happily married. Don't want to be weird, but that's all because of you.” I was like, “That's awesome.” He said, “If you're ever in Detroit,” and I said, “Yeah, man, I'm going to be there.” I went, he introduced me to his daughter, who was literally four weeks old, I took a picture with her. We went to Subway for lunch. Last night, his daughter hit me up. She calls me Uncle Tommy, we exchange Christmas cards. I said, “What are you doing out of bed?” She goes, “Well, no school tomorrow.” But yeah, stuff like that, watching people grow up. Like people have watched me grow up. Stuff like that is awesome because when you're around for as long as I am, you're going to meet people and try to influence people in a positive way. When it's my time to leave this earth, I hope people remember that and hopefully people can pay that forward.

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Since 2008, Graham has been a diehard pro wrestling fan and, in 2010, he combined his passions for WWE and writing when he joined Bleacher Report. Equipped with a master's in journalism, Graham has contributed to WhatCulture, FanSided's Daily DDT, Sports Betting Dime, and GateHouse Media. Along the way, he has conducted interviews with wrestling superstars like Chris Jericho, Edge, Goldberg, Christian, Diamond Dallas Page, Jim Ross, Adam Cole, Tessa Blanchard, Ryback, and Nick Aldis among others.