WWE veteran's match nearly turned into a shoot fight after taking the heaviest chair shot in his career [Exclusive]

Unprotected chair shots to the head are mostly a thing of the past in pro wrestling and WWE. But it was quite a repetitive visual back in the day. Dutch Mantell recently recalled taking the hardest chair shot ever from Tommy Dreamer.

While they've both had stints in WWE, Dutch Mantell and Tommy Dreamer did some of their best work outside the company. While Dutch began wrestling long before Dreamer made his debut, the former WWE personalities wrestled in Memphis decades ago and it was quite an eye-opening experience for Mantell.

During the latest edition of Sportskeeda Wrestling's Smack Talk, Dutch Mantell revealed he took the hardest chair shot in his career that night at the hands of Tommy Dreamer. Mantell disclosed that he responded by delivering a similarly stiff shot, which threatened the match to go off the rails and potentially turn into a shoot fight.

Much to Dutch's surprise, Tommy Dreamer continued wrestling as if nothing had happened. The former WWE manager shared details of the fascinating in-ring story below:

"He got a chair and was going to hit me, and I wasn't used to doing the ECW style; he hit me so freaking hard, I swear to god, I thought I owed him money. So then we worked around a little bit, and I poked him in the eye, and I said, stand right there. I hit him, not as hard as I could but pretty damn hard. You know what he said? Nothing. He just kept working, well, I said, 'goddamn! I'm glad I didn't go to ECW because I would not have made it through." [From 47:00 onwards]

Despite feeling as if Tommy Dreamer's chair shot had rattled his brain, Dutch Mantell had fond memories of the match and thought they worked well together.

However, Dutch Mantell, was not prepared for Dreamer's lack of reaction to his "receipt" and it gave the former a clear picture of the sheer toughness of the ECW Original.

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