Every Monday and Friday I have a wrestling column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Today’s looks at how Tommy Dreamer is making pro wrestling history. Here’s an excerpt:
His name is Tommy Dreamer, he’s a certified legend and the innovator of violence. Bada bing, bada boom, smartest guy in the room.
It might not sound as cool without Enzo Amore doing it in NXT, but the words are very true.
Dreamer, 44, showed up on RAW last week, joining the Dudley Boyz in their fight against The Wyatt Family. It seems he will be around on WWE programming for at least much of December. In addition to this current WWE stint, he’s appeared on TNA, NXT, more than two dozen indy promotions and his own promotion, House of Hardcore — all in 2015. He’s doing it all with no long-term agreement or clauses preventing him from working everywhere else.
Are you kidding me?
In an industry like professional wrestling where egos and deceit run wilder than Hulkamania in the ’80s, having a key to that many doors simultaneously is unprecedented. Dreamer is not getting fired from promotion to promotion and just happening to appear on television simultaneously like Rick Rude famously did in 1997. It’s all on his terms. This is history.
To top it off, Dreamer is wearing his House of Hardcore shirts in the ring on all of these other promotions’ television. Free promotion. Free promotion where the revenue stemming from the promotion is his. It’s right up there with Brock Lesnar having enough leverage to keep his personal endorsement with Jimmy Johns on all of his merchandise and ring gear. I’m just waiting for Dreamer to have Subway sandwiches promoted on the back of his HOH shirts. He eats there enough, it would be genuine support.
More on what really makes what Dreamer’s doing special and what it could mean for the future of wrestling—CLICK HERE.
