Look, I think it is great that we are at a point where people can openly talk about their mental health issues. I have suffered with anxiety and panic attacks for much of my adult life, for example, and I am pleased that this is something I can talk about openly now rather than feeling compelled to completely hide it from, say, my employer.
But at the same time, it is probably not a good idea to openly discuss how you once planned to murder someone at a public event and then commit suicide. A simple “I was in a really bad place in 2001, and a call from Jim Ross really made all the difference” was probably all Tommy Dreamer needed to say here.
“I remember I did a show there, and I saw a sign that said, ‘Guns Welcome,’ and I was in Houston,” Dreamer said, according to Uproxx. “I did an indie show, and I said, ‘What is this?’ I’m from New York, what do you mean, ‘Guns Welcome’? And they said, ‘Oh, you are allowed to bring a firearm into the venue.’ I was across the street from the Astrodome. When I tell you it resonated in my head so, so much.
“That I’ll tell you what I wanted to do. It’s sick that I think this. At WrestleMania, I was gonna hop the rail and I was gonna whack Paul E. in the back of the head right at the announce table, then I was gonna whack myself. The ultimate martyr, I was gonna hit my pose crack, boom, pull the trigger. Because I was that insane. Don’t know if I would have went through with it, but that’s what I was thinking about every day. I was like, ‘I will go down in history.’ Pop, boom. First they’d think it was an angle until I shot him. I was so severely depressed and so mental with rage, I needed help.”
A well-timed phone call from Ross helped save Dreamer from the terrifying plan.
“Randomly I get a phone call from a number I didn’t know … I didn’t pick up,” said Dreamer, who now owns the House of Hardcore promotion. “I remember having these thoughts, and it was bad. I had a gun, I was psssh, man. Could you think about the horribleness that I would have done for my legacy? I would have ruined WrestleMania, which I love, WrestleMania. For everybody. These thoughts were so, so crazed in my head. How dare that person, he screwed my parents over and I come from a mobster mentality. In my head I was like, ‘I would become infamous,’ which is famous for the wrong reason. I’m glad I didn’t do it.
“But when that phone call came from Jim Ross. Again, just said leave a message. It said, ‘Hey Tommy, it’s Jim Ross, just want to let you know we are still thinking about you, we are gonna get it done, just got to hang tight. Thank you.’”