Tommy Dreamer Really Dislocated His Finger At No Surrender, Explains Why Match Break Was ‘Almost A Gift’

Tommy Dreamer loves a good pop.

Dreamer took to his House Of Hardcore podcast to look back on a big week that included his milestone 50th birthday and main eventing IMPACT No Surrender last Saturday. Dreamer says he enjoyed the story they told and took some parts of Terry Funk’s ECW run and included it in the build to this program with Rich Swann.

Dreamer opened by talking about how much the tribute videos he received meant to him, then pointed out that he was pissed about his promo on the “go-home” episode getting edited for time. H explained that the final promo he delivered to Moose and Rich Swann was edited for time, not content, and while he already requested IMPACT post the unedited promo, he doesn’t think that’s going to happen.

Dreamer went on to talk about not being able to get into second gear during the match and noted how much having a live crowd means to performers, explaining that emotion is something that he feeds off of and it’s quite the challenge to find the same pace when there is no crowd. The “Innovator Of Violence” also called back to his original ECW days and how the fans would literally pick him up off of the guardrail to will him along, noting that it’s something he took from Ricky Morton. 

Read More: This Week’s IMPACT Wrestling Viewership Posts Highest Total Since Kenny Omega’s Debut In December

Dreamer then showed his finger to the camera and said it’s still got some swelling and bruising, and went on to address his injury, pointing out some fans said it was a fake angle. 

“People [on social media] were like, ‘Oh, that’s fake…’ I’ll tell you this—I’ve broken 18 fingers now, which sucks because you only have ten, and I don’t know which ones I broke more than once. That was an homage to, and I guess people were saying it was fake because of the doctor coming out in the white doctor’s lab coat. That was a homage to [ECW] Barely Legal,” Dreamer explained. “I do things to bring it full circle, I don’t know what. Or I do things to pop myself to where people are [questioning it], but at least they’re talking. But that was my homage to ECW with Terry Funk where he was bleeding and we sent the doctors out in that white lab coat, my good friend, Dr. Mark Allen. People were like, ‘Oh, it’s fake’ because Ross Forman, who is the ‘doctor’ for IMPACT Wrestling on television, but they also know him from all of his PR work, so I guess people thought it was fake. But when you do dislocate your finger, yes, some doctors—and I hate it—they’ll say ‘we want you to get x-rays to see if your tore ligaments’ and all that stuff, and basically what they do is pop in back in. So, that’s what you saw.”

Dreamer then went on to explain that the break in the match actually aided him and said he hadn’t been that winded since the early days of ECW.

“I loved when [referee] Brian Hebner gagged, it made me laugh. Yes, it was painful. If the fans were there, I wouldn’t have had to stop. [laughs] When I tell you that me having to do that was almost a gift, because if I didn’t have that stop and I didn’t get water, I don’t think the match would have been as good as a lot of people have portrayed it to be. I thought it was a good story, but I was gassed to the gills. I haven’t been gassed since the early ‘90s, I’m talking early ECW. Not 1995, early ECW where you just get your nerves going. 

A lot of people were like, ‘he poured water on it, that will do nothing’ and Matt Striker covered it up and said ‘he’s trying to see if he has feeling’. These are all things that are real, and also to pop it just kinda [going for it], like whew, you’ve just got to pop it. I’ve done it before, I’ll also put in people’s shoulders, which is disgusting, but it comes with the game.”

Check out the full show below:

Read More: New Details On IMPACT’s Creative Plans For Sammy Guevara, How Black Taurus Replaced Him