Impact Wrestling Invades House of Hardcore

Tommy Dreamer is a hardcore octopus, his barbed wire tentacles gripping every opportunity in reach.

He returned to Impact Wrestling last month, joining forces with Eddie Edwards and Moose in a chaotic six-man tag team match at Redemption. A few weeks earlier, he was decked out in a suit at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, tearing up as his best friends were honored on stage. In March, he challenged Nick Aldis for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, bringing that historic title back to the ECW Arena.

On top of all that, his promotion House of Hardcore finally crowned its first champion during WrestleCon in New Orleans after nearly six years in business.

You just never know where the Innovator of Violence will show up next, but we’ll give you a hint: He’ll be at HOH 43 at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia this Saturday.

Unlike previous shows, though, you can’t watch HOH 43 live on Twitch. Because of his interactions with so many different companies, certain matches and segments will be filmed for different purposes at later dates. Although the event will be broadcast on Twitch in the future, you need to be there in person for the full experience.

There will be many Impact stars at the show and the only match announced thus far is Moose vs. Eli Drake, in the latter’s HOH debut.

For tickets and more information on HOH 43, visit www.houseofhardcore.net.

House of Hardcore’s weekly show airs on Twitch every Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST, right after NXT. Watch HOH on Twitch at go.twitch.tv/houseofhardcore.

Dreamer spoke with The Wrestling Estate last week regarding his relationship with Impact Wrestling.

First things first, how was WrestleMania weekend?

Tommy Dreamer: “WrestleMania weekend was amazing on so many levels. For myself and House of Hardcore, we produced the live event for Impact Wrestling and Lucha Underground. When you think about it, that’s three companies all merging together to produce one hell of a show that Friday. On Saturday, our HOH show started about an hour after NXT aired, which was around 11:15 p.m., and it ended around 2:20 in the morning. The place was packed and going crazy for Willie Mack winning the title and me and Billy Gunn against Lance Hoyt and Davey Boy Smith Jr. A lot of fans literally walked from NXT to my show, and they probably did WrestleCon and WWE Axxess, so they had a full day. It was a real testament to how hard the men and women worked on my show and then a testament to how great wrestling fans are.”

I didn’t realize that you produced the joint Impact/Lucha show. How did that come about?

Dreamer: “They didn’t know at that time how exactly to stream on Twitch, and since I was doing it anyway, they asked if I could have my people come in and do it. It worked out really, really well. Then they also aired a lot of content on their Impact show and they’ve been nice to give House of Hardcore credit, which is why I’ve been helping out there. I’ve been friends with Scott D’Amore and Don Callis for a long time. They have a really hard task and they’ve kind of evoked my policy of no politics, no BS, just wrestling. When your friends ask for help, that’s what I always do.”

Are you surprised that all of these promotions are working together?

Dreamer: “You kind of have to. WWE is 90% of the market share. WWE can sign everybody. But with the rise of Ring of Honor, New Japan, Impact Wrestling, House of Hardcore, Lucha Underground, we can come together and give wrestlers opportunity. Look what happens when everybody was at war. There was a sole winner and then the business crashed. Who was the most affected? Wrestling fans, as well as the wrestlers.

I’m all about variety and showing people other stuff. I brought in the NWA back to the ECW Arena at our last show. I’ve also had Ring of Honor at my show. I’ll have everybody at my show because it benefits wrestling fans.”

How was it seeing the Dudley Boyz inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame?

Dreamer: “It was awesome. Bubba and D-Von are two of my closest friends. To see the first original ECW act to go in there was an honor. I was happy they went on first because as soon as their speech ended, I had to hop in a Lyft and produce the Impact show.

You also talk about the insanity of the pro wrestling business – Bully Ray is under contract to Ring of Honor. Yet he was on WWE television on Friday and then wrestled for ROH on Saturday. WWE has done that as well if you remember when they pulled the Hardyz from my show and then it ended up working out.”

It’s great to finally talk to you about the first House of Hardcore Champion. Why is Willie Mack the perfect wrestler to represent House of Hardcore?

Dreamer: “Willie is amazing and has so many great qualities. I don’t judge a book by its cover. If you look at Willie Mack, he doesn’t have the greatest body, but he’s trying. Willie Mack does have the athletic ability of Rob Van Dam meets Rey Mysterio and he has the charisma of Dusty Rhodes and Junkyard Dog when he’s performing. He just goes out there and kills. I couldn’t believe when he and Brian Cage were wrestling that he busted out the Van Terminator. He just does so many things that I couldn’t possibly think a guy with a belly like him, because he likes to drink his beer, that he could go out and do the stuff he does. I couldn’t be happier with him being the champion and representing my company because he truly is an unfound talent that now the world is getting to see just how good he is.”

How did it feel having one of your ECW brothers Jerry Lynn be the special guest referee and take part in that moment?

Dreamer: “That was awesome. Jerry had contacted me and said he’d be down there and asked if I wanted to do anything with him. I said absolutely. He added to the match like any special referee should. Still going down there and making the counts, you know, he’s had knee replacements and hip replacements, but he still loves the business. He also was talking to a lot of the men and women in the back about making them better. He still has a lot to offer; his body can’t do it anymore, but his mind totally can. Jerry is one of the great guys of professional wrestling. Having him raise that hand really endorses that my champion is the guy to beat.”

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Jerry before, and he really is a friendly, warm guy. It’s a shame that he was never given his due, because he wrestled for 25 years, always had great matches and he and RVD really lit it up in ECW. He has to be one the most underrated wrestlers ever.

Dreamer: “Correct. I don’t want to say he was always too short, but when he was around, it was the land of giants in professional wrestling. He came later on to ECW and his talents finally got him recognized. Then ECW goes away and when he goes to WWE, it wasn’t so much land of the giants, but it was so many guys coming from WCW and ECW. Due to his height and size, I don’t want to say it cost him his job, but it kind of was. They weren’t spotlighting smaller guys like they are now. He has always seemed to miss the wave.

ECW highlighted him because he was super talented and that’s what we cared about. He was also older, but I’m glad wrestling fans got to see how talented he truly is and was. His matches with Rob Van Dam still hold up. He and Justin Credible’s matches, too. Jerry, like you said, is very, very underrated. I’m glad he goes to the WWE Performance Center and still helps out today.”

Another older guy that we should talk about is Billy Gunn. You’ve been teaming with him a lot recently. Is that something you guys had always talked about doing?

Dreamer: “Never once. I always say he’s my meanest friend. He just surpassed Bubba. It’s funny, we were wrestling at 2:05 in the morning. Billy Gunn is 53 years old and he’s in the shape that he’s in and he’s also doing the moves he can do. He came in and said I haven’t been up this late in forever. This is so past my bedtime. I’m like, alright grandpa.

Then he goes out there and works his ass off super hard. A lot of times in wrestling, they say you’re past your prime or old and that’s it. But you look at how he looks and how hard he works. We do have chemistry, but Billy Gunn has chemistry with everybody. Me and him versus The Young Bucks is probably one of my favorite matches. Us versus the Killer Elite Squad was great, too.

I love working with Billy. I learn stuff and I also do stuff that makes him angry during our matches. But he’s an awesome partner. I also know all the afflictions that poor Road Dogg had to go through. Billy screams at me so many times. I’m like dude, I’m the boss. Stop yelling at me.”

(laughs) That’s great. Let’s talk about House of Hardcore 43. I haven’t seen any matches listed, but there are a lot of Impact stars on the poster. Is this relationship something you’re looking to advance?

Dreamer: “Yeah, I’ve been doing some behind the scenes as well as in front of the camera things with Impact. The Redemption pay-per-view was a super solid show. It’s more coverage for House of Hardcore. Myself, Eddie Edwards and Moose had a great match with Sami Callihan and oVe. We did a lot of insane things, but that’s kind of what we do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S7NL3qshI8

There are a lot of moving parts to this show, that’s why it’s not going to air live on Twitch. It will air eventually, though. There is a lot of stuff going on and I don’t want it to affect the show. There is stuff happening just for the live audience, just for Impact and just for House of Hardcore on Twitch. It’s one of those where you better be there because you’ll be missing some cool stuff.

We’ll have LAX, oVe, Eddie Edwards, Moose, Eli Drake’s debut. I use Sami Callihan and Brian Cage all the time. Brian Cage is signed to Lucha Underground, too. How you can have two contracts at the same time, I have no clue. You can play for the Mets and the Phillies only in professional wrestling.”

Before I let you go, I want to bring up the late, great Bruno Sammartino. Were you too young to catch him in his prime?

Dreamer: “Unfortunately, he was before my time, but I did see when he came back. I was there at Shea Stadium when he wrestled Larry Zybszko. That’s how me and Taz actually bonded because I didn’t really like Taz. On a road trip, we talked about when Larry turned on Bruno, we both punched our television. It’s not a smart thing to do, but we were that upset.

I met Bruno a bunch of times. We spoke on the phone and became somewhat friends in the sense that he knew all about House of Hardcore. I tried booking him for four House of Hardcore shows. I wanted to put him in the Poughkeepsie Hall of Fame and the 2300 Arena Hall of Fame, just to have him there. Every time I tried booking him, it was either his birthday or his wife’s birthday or somebody else’s birthday. He would always say I’m sorry, but you don’t know how many more of these you’re going to have.

One of my happier moments was him going back to WWE. He had actually asked me my opinion on it. It was always “yes sir” or “no sir” because he’s Bruno Sammartino. I had actually introduced him to Edge and they had an awesome conversation.

At WrestleMania 30, I walked into catering and I saw Bruno. He yelled “Tommy!” and waved to me. The fact that Bruno Sammartino knew my name was just, wow. He asked how I’ve been and how he heard the promotion was doing good. He always gave me a lot of cool words of wisdom. After that WrestleMania, we were together in the airport and a fan asked to take a picture with Bruno. Bruno said ‘Tommy, get in here.’ It sucks I don’t have a picture with him and I wish I had that picture.”

I’m sure somebody would send it to you if you tweeted about it.

Dreamer: “Yeah, I’ll find it one day. I know they said some interesting facts like Bruno sold out Shea Stadium twice, but he also sold out Fenway twice, Soldier Field and Comiskey Park. He also sold out the Pittsburgh Forbes Field with Freddie Blassie.”

That’s pretty cool.

Dreamer: “Yeah. It doesn’t matter about the success I’ve had in the business, I’m still a fan. When Bruno Sammartino talked to me, it was like “yes sir/no sir” but the kid inside me was like how the fuck does Bruno Sammartino know I’m alive. He was truly a great champion and great representation of professional wrestling.”

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John Corrigan

Editor-in-chief John Corrigan has covered pro wrestling for nearly a decade, reporting for Wrestledelphia, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Temple News and others.

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