During an appearance on Busted Open Radio, Tommy Dreamer discussed the death of Howard Finkel and Finkel’s health problems in recent years:
“A lot of people said Howard had a stroke. Howard did not have a stroke. Howard had a rare genetic brain disease. His brain was shrinking and I hate that because the whole out think the Fink and he was slowly losing his mind. He had stroke-like systems but he kept falling because of his brain. I didn’t post pictures of us on social media. I took them all the time I would visit him, but Howard had such pride. He didn’t want the people to know that he was sick. He didn’t want people to feel sorry for him. He was literally just sitting there watching the Mets game until it was time to watch wrestling.”
“I posted a picture last night on social media and everyone kept hitting me up about the note over my shoulder. I went back and I looked, and this was when Howard was in a bad state. Howard couldn’t, sadly, use a cell phone anymore because of his hands. If you handed him the phone, which is what I would do every time I would visit, I would FaceTime with Justin (Credible). Howard’s medical note above my shoulder said, please put channel 43 on at 8 p.m. on Monday Nights. Wrestling is on. That was his medical note. He loved us. We were his family. That’s all he had. He loved performing in front of the fans and he loved us, unconditionally.”
